lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2014]   [Feb]   [17]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 2/6] Documentation/memory-barriers.txt: ACCESS_ONCE() provides cache coherence
On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 01:26:49PM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
>
> The ACCESS_ONCE() primitive provides cache coherence, but the
> documentation does not clearly state this. This commit therefore upgrades
> the documentation.
>
> Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>

Punctuation nit below; otherwise:
Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>

> Documentation/memory-barriers.txt | 17 +++++++++++++++++
> 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> index 102dc19c4119..ad6db1d48f1f 100644
> --- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
> @@ -1249,6 +1249,23 @@ The ACCESS_ONCE() function can prevent any number of optimizations that,
> while perfectly safe in single-threaded code, can be fatal in concurrent
> code. Here are some examples of these sorts of optimizations:
>
> + (*) The compiler is within its rights to reorder loads and stores
> + to the same variable, and in some cases, the CPU is within its
> + rights to reorder loads to the same variable. This means that
> + the following code:
> +
> + a[0] = x;
> + a[1] = x;
> +
> + Might result in an older value of x stored in a[1] than in a[0].
> + Prevent both the compiler and the CPU from doing this as follows:
> +
> + a[0] = ACCESS_ONCE(x);
> + a[1] = ACCESS_ONCE(x);
> +
> + In short, ACCESS_ONCE() provides "cache coherence" for accesses from
> + multiple CPUs to a single variable.

You don't need to "quote" the well-established term "cache coherence".

> (*) The compiler is within its rights to merge successive loads from
> the same variable. Such merging can cause the compiler to "optimize"
> the following code:
> --
> 1.8.1.5
>


\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2014-02-18 02:41    [W:0.130 / U:0.460 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site