Re: [PATCH RFC] kvm: optimize out smp_mb using srcu_read_unlock

From: Paolo Bonzini
Date: Thu Oct 31 2013 - 07:11:31 EST


Il 31/10/2013 07:47, Gleb Natapov ha scritto:
> This looks dubious to me. All other smp_mb__after_* variants are there
> because some atomic operations have different memory barrier semantics on
> different arches,

It doesn't have to be arches; unlock APIs typically have release
semantics only, but SRCU is stronger.

> but srcu_read_unlock() have the same semantics on all
> arches, so smp_mb__after_srcu_read_unlock() becomes
> smp_mb__after_a_function_that_happens_to_have_mb_now_but_may_not_have_in_the_feature().
> How likely it is that smp_mb() will disappear from srcu_read_unlock()
> (if was added for a reason I guess)? May be we should change documentation
> to say that srcu_read_unlock() is a memory barrier which will reflect
> the reality.

That would be different from all other unlock APIs.

Paolo
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