Re: [RFC v2 3/7] powerpc: atomic: Implement atomic{,64}_{add,sub}_return_* variants

From: Boqun Feng
Date: Mon Sep 21 2015 - 19:37:30 EST


On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 07:26:56AM +0800, Boqun Feng wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 11:24:27PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
> > Hi Boqun,
> >
> > On Sun, Sep 20, 2015 at 09:23:03AM +0100, Boqun Feng wrote:
> > > On Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 11:33:10PM +0800, Boqun Feng wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 05:59:02PM +0100, Will Deacon wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 04:49:31PM +0100, Boqun Feng wrote:
> > > > > > On powerpc, we don't need a general memory barrier to achieve acquire and
> > > > > > release semantics, so __atomic_op_{acquire,release} can be implemented
> > > > > > using "lwsync" and "isync".
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm assuming isync+ctrl isn't transitive, so we need to get to the bottom
> > > >
> > > > Actually the transitivity is still guaranteed here, I think ;-)
> >
> > The litmus test I'm thinking of is:
> >
> >
> > {
> > 0:r2=x;
> > 1:r2=x; 1:r5=z;
> > 2:r2=z; 2:r4=x;
> > }
> > P0 | P1 | P2 ;
> > li r1,1 | lwz r1,0(r2) | lwz r1,0(r2) ;
> > stw r1,0(r2) | cmpw r1,r1 | cmpw r1,r1 ;
> > | beq LC00 | beq LC01 ;
> > | LC00: | LC01: ;
> > | isync | isync ;
> > | li r4,1 | lwz r3,0(r4) ;
> > | stw r4,0(r5) | ;
> > exists
> > (1:r1=1 /\ 2:r1=1 /\ 2:r3=0)
> >
> >
> > Which appears to be allowed. I don't think you need to worry about backwards
> > branches for the ctrl+isync construction (none of the current example do,
> > afaict).
> >
>
> Yes.. my care of backwards branches is not quite related to the topic, I
> concerned that mostly because my test is using atomic operation, and I
> just want to test the exact asm code.
>
> > Anyway, all the problematic cases seem to arise when we start mixing
> > ACQUIRE/RELEASE accesses with relaxed accesses (i.e. where an access from
> > one group reads from an access in the other group). It would be simplest
> > to say that this doesn't provide any transitivity guarantees, and that
> > an ACQUIRE must always read from a RELEASE if transitivity is required.
> >
>
> Agreed. RELEASE alone doesn't provide transitivity and transitivity is
^^^^^^^
This should be ACQUIRE...

> guaranteed only if an ACQUIRE read from a RELEASE. That's exactly the
> direction which the link (https://lkml.org/lkml/2015/9/15/836) is
> heading to. So I think we are fine here to use ctrl+isync here, right?
>
> Regards,
> Boqun

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