Commit daf1aab9 authored by Paul E. McKenney's avatar Paul E. McKenney

documentation: Clarify memory-barrier semantics of atomic operations

All value-returning atomic read-modify-write operations must provide full
memory-barrier semantics on both sides of the operation.  This commit
clarifies the documentation to make it clear that these memory-barrier
semantics are provided by the operations themselves, not by their callers.
Reported-by: default avatarPeter Hurley <peter@hurleysoftware.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
parent f1360570
......@@ -201,11 +201,11 @@ These routines add 1 and subtract 1, respectively, from the given
atomic_t and return the new counter value after the operation is
performed.
Unlike the above routines, it is required that explicit memory
barriers are performed before and after the operation. It must be
done such that all memory operations before and after the atomic
operation calls are strongly ordered with respect to the atomic
operation itself.
Unlike the above routines, it is required that these primitives
include explicit memory barriers that are performed before and after
the operation. It must be done such that all memory operations before
and after the atomic operation calls are strongly ordered with respect
to the atomic operation itself.
For example, it should behave as if a smp_mb() call existed both
before and after the atomic operation.
......@@ -233,21 +233,21 @@ These two routines increment and decrement by 1, respectively, the
given atomic counter. They return a boolean indicating whether the
resulting counter value was zero or not.
It requires explicit memory barrier semantics around the operation as
above.
Again, these primitives provide explicit memory barrier semantics around
the atomic operation.
int atomic_sub_and_test(int i, atomic_t *v);
This is identical to atomic_dec_and_test() except that an explicit
decrement is given instead of the implicit "1". It requires explicit
memory barrier semantics around the operation.
decrement is given instead of the implicit "1". This primitive must
provide explicit memory barrier semantics around the operation.
int atomic_add_negative(int i, atomic_t *v);
The given increment is added to the given atomic counter value. A
boolean is return which indicates whether the resulting counter value
is negative. It requires explicit memory barrier semantics around the
operation.
The given increment is added to the given atomic counter value. A boolean
is return which indicates whether the resulting counter value is negative.
This primitive must provide explicit memory barrier semantics around
the operation.
Then:
......@@ -257,7 +257,7 @@ This performs an atomic exchange operation on the atomic variable v, setting
the given new value. It returns the old value that the atomic variable v had
just before the operation.
atomic_xchg requires explicit memory barriers around the operation.
atomic_xchg must provide explicit memory barriers around the operation.
int atomic_cmpxchg(atomic_t *v, int old, int new);
......@@ -266,7 +266,7 @@ with the given old and new values. Like all atomic_xxx operations,
atomic_cmpxchg will only satisfy its atomicity semantics as long as all
other accesses of *v are performed through atomic_xxx operations.
atomic_cmpxchg requires explicit memory barriers around the operation.
atomic_cmpxchg must provide explicit memory barriers around the operation.
The semantics for atomic_cmpxchg are the same as those defined for 'cas'
below.
......@@ -279,8 +279,8 @@ If the atomic value v is not equal to u, this function adds a to v, and
returns non zero. If v is equal to u then it returns zero. This is done as
an atomic operation.
atomic_add_unless requires explicit memory barriers around the operation
unless it fails (returns 0).
atomic_add_unless must provide explicit memory barriers around the
operation unless it fails (returns 0).
atomic_inc_not_zero, equivalent to atomic_add_unless(v, 1, 0)
......@@ -460,9 +460,9 @@ the return value into an int. There are other places where things
like this occur as well.
These routines, like the atomic_t counter operations returning values,
require explicit memory barrier semantics around their execution. All
memory operations before the atomic bit operation call must be made
visible globally before the atomic bit operation is made visible.
must provide explicit memory barrier semantics around their execution.
All memory operations before the atomic bit operation call must be
made visible globally before the atomic bit operation is made visible.
Likewise, the atomic bit operation must be visible globally before any
subsequent memory operation is made visible. For example:
......@@ -536,8 +536,9 @@ except that two underscores are prefixed to the interface name.
These non-atomic variants also do not require any special memory
barrier semantics.
The routines xchg() and cmpxchg() need the same exact memory barriers
as the atomic and bit operations returning values.
The routines xchg() and cmpxchg() must provide the same exact
memory-barrier semantics as the atomic and bit operations returning
values.
Spinlocks and rwlocks have memory barrier expectations as well.
The rule to follow is simple:
......
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