Re: spin_lock forgets to clobber memory and other smp fixes [was Re: [patch] waitqueue optimization, 2.4.0-test7]

From: Jamie Lokier (lk@tantalophile.demon.co.uk)
Date: Thu Sep 07 2000 - 11:46:29 EST


Linus Torvalds wrote:
> "volatile" should be equivalent to clobbering memory, although the gcc
> manual pages are certainly not very verbose on the issue.

It isn't. Try the following with/without the memory clobber:

int *p;
int func()
{
  int x;
  x = *p;
  __asm__ __volatile__ ("" : : : "memory");
  x = *p;
  return x;
}

With or without, the program reads *p only once. However, with the
clobber it reads _after_ the asm; without, it reads _before_ the asm.

It's ok for the compiler to do that (given we don't know what "volatile"
means anyway :-). But it does have implications for spin_lock:
spin_lock must say that it clobbers memory.

spin_unlock should also say it clobbers memory but I have no test case
to demonstrate the compiler moving reads down past an asm.

-- Jamie
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 07 2000 - 21:00:30 EST