Re: [PATCH 1/4] fs/autofs: Use time_before, time_before_eq, etc.

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Wed Dec 26 2007 - 15:46:08 EST


Ray Lee wrote:
On Dec 26, 2007 7:21 AM, Julia Lawall <julia@xxxxxxx> wrote:
- if (jiffies - ent->last_usage < timeout)
+ if (time_before(jiffies, ent->last_usage + timeout))

I don't think this is a safe change? subtraction is always safe (if
you think about it as 'distance'), addition isn't always safe unless
you know the range. The time_before macro will expand that out to
(effectively):

if ( (long)(ent->last_usage + timeout) - (long)(jiffies) < 0 )

which seems to introduce an overflow condition in the first term.

Dunno, I may be wrong (happens often), but at the very least what
you've transformed it into is no longer obviously correct, and so it's
not a great change.

Indeed. The bottom form will have overflow issues at time jiffies_wraparound/2, whereas the top form will have overflow issues only near jiffies_wraparound/1.

-hpa
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