Re: [PATCH 6/7] writeback: separate starting of sync vsopportunistic writeback

From: Jens Axboe
Date: Mon Sep 14 2009 - 15:42:50 EST


On Mon, Sep 14 2009, Jens Axboe wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 14 2009, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 03:33:07PM +0200, Jan Kara wrote:
> > > On Mon 14-09-09 11:36:33, Jens Axboe wrote:
> > > > bdi_start_writeback() is currently split into two paths, one for
> > > > WB_SYNC_NONE and one for WB_SYNC_ALL. Add bdi_sync_writeback()
> > > > for WB_SYNC_ALL writeback and let bdi_start_writeback() handle
> > > > only WB_SYNC_NONE.
> > > What I don't like about this patch is that if somebody sets up
> > > writeback_control with WB_SYNC_ALL mode set and then submits it to disk via
> > > bdi_start_writeback() it will just silently convert his writeback to an
> > > asynchronous one.
> > > So I'd maybe leave setting of sync_mode to the caller and just WARN_ON if
> > > it does not match the purpose of the function...
> >
> > Or initialize the wb entirely inside these functions. For the sync case
> > we really only need a superblock as argument, and for writeback it's
> > bdi + nr_pages. And also make sure they consistenly return void as
> > no one cares about the return value.
>
> Yes, I thought about doing that and like that better than the warning.
> Just pass in the needed args and allocate+fill the wbc on stack. I'll
> make that change.

That works out much better, imho:

http://git.kernel.dk/?p=linux-2.6-block.git;a=commit;h=270c12655d7d11e234d335a8ab0540c02c034b66

--
Jens Axboe

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