Re: [PATCH v3] tools/memory-model: Make ppo a subrelation of po

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Mon Feb 27 2023 - 17:21:28 EST


On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 09:13:01PM +0100, Jonas Oberhauser wrote:
>
>
> On 2/27/2023 8:40 PM, Andrea Parri wrote:
> > > The LKMM doesn't believe that a control or data dependency orders a
> > > plain write after a marked read. Hence in this test it thinks that P1's
> > > store to u0 can happen before the load of x1. I don't remember why we
> > > did it this way -- probably we just wanted to minimize the restrictions
> > > on when plain accesses can execute. (I do remember the reason for
> > > making address dependencies induce order; it was so RCU would work.)
> > >
> > > The patch below will change what the LKMM believes. It eliminates the
> > > positive outcome of the litmus test and the data race. Should it be
> > > adopted into the memory model?
> > (Unpopular opinion I know,) it should drop dependencies ordering, not
> > add/promote it.
> >
> > Andrea
>
> Maybe not as unpopular as you think... :)
> But either way IMHO it should be consistent; either take all the
> dependencies that are true and add them, or drop them all.
> In the latter case, RCU should change to an acquire barrier. (also, one
> would have to deal with OOTA in some yet different way).
>
> Generally my position is that unless there's a real-world benchmark with
> proven performance benefits of relying on dependency ordering, one should
> use an acquire barrier. I haven't yet met such a case, but maybe one of you
> has...

https://www.msully.net/thesis/thesis.pdf page 128 (PDF page 141).

Though this is admittedly for ARMv7 and PowerPC.

Thanx, Paul