Re: [patch] Re: using long instead of atomic_t when only set/readis required
From: Alan Stern
Date: Mon Mar 03 2008 - 12:11:23 EST
On Mon, 3 Mar 2008, Alan Cox wrote:
> > Atomicity of reads of write for pointers and integral types (other than
> > long long) should be documented.
>
> NAK.
>
> Atomicity of reads or writes for pointers and integral types is NOT
> guaranteed. Gcc doesn't believe in your guarantee.
Miscommunication and lack of clarity. CPU reads and writes _are_
guaranteed to be atomic. What is not guaranteed is that the compiler
will generate a single read or write instruction corresponding to a
particular expression in C.
Consider a routine like the following:
static task_struct *the_task;
void store_task(void)
{
the_task = current;
}
Is it possible to say whether readers examining "the_task" are
guaranteed to see a coherent value?
Alan Stern
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