Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 1/6] rcu: Abstract the dynticks momentary-idle operation

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Mon Jan 16 2017 - 18:48:25 EST


On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 10:57:04AM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 03:22:39AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 11:39:51PM -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > > On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 12:54:40AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > > This commit is the first step towards full abstraction of all accesses to
> > > > the ->dynticks counter, implementing the previously open-coded atomic add
> > > > of two in a new rcu_dynticks_momentary_idle() function. This abstraction
> > > > will ease changes to the ->dynticks counter operation.
> > > >
> > > > Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > >
> > > This change has an additional effect not documented in the commit
> > > message: it eliminates the smp_mb__before_atomic and
> > > smp_mb__after_atomic calls. Can you please document that in the commit
> > > message, and explain why that doesn't cause a problem?
> >
> > The trick is that the old code used the non-value-returning atomic_add(),
> > which does not imply ordering, hence the smp_mb__before_atomic() and
> > smp_mb__after_atomic() calls. The new code uses atomic_add_return(),
> > which does return a value, and therefore implies full ordering in and
> > of itself.
> >
> > How would you like me to proceed?
>
> With the above explanation added to the commit message:
>
> Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Done, thank you!

Thanx, Paul