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DateFri, 3 Jul 2009 12:10:23 -0700 (PDT)
FromLinus Torvalds <>
SubjectRe: [PATCH -tip] x86: atomic64: inline atomic64_read()


On Fri, 3 Jul 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > +
> > + asm volatile(
> > + "mov %%ebx, %%eax\n\t"
> > + "mov %%ecx, %%edx\n\t"
> > + LOCK_PREFIX "cmpxchg8b %1\n"
> > + : "=&A" (res)
> > + : "m" (*ptr)
> > + );
>
> That clobbers or affects eax, ebx, ecx, edx. The only registers it
> does not clobber is esi, edi and rbp.

No, it only clobbers eax/edx. Yes, it touches ebx/ecx, but that's kind of
incidental, and read-only, and doesn't matter.

> Linus, what's your preference in this case?

I think it's kind of subtle to do that thing, but it _is_ very much a
special case. It's odd to use a cmpxchg8b to just do a read in the first
place, so the fact that we then play other games with it is kind of
immaterial.

Adding a comment about the magic "we don't care about the initial values
in eax/edx and ebx/ecx, but they have to match in case we end up doing a
writeback" might be a good idea.

Linus


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