Re: [PATCH memory-model 5/8] tools/memory-model: Add a glossary of LKMM terms

From: Paul E. McKenney
Date: Fri Nov 06 2020 - 14:59:53 EST


On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 02:23:51PM -0500, Alan Stern wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 10:04:46AM -0800, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 11:59:30AM -0500, Alan Stern wrote:
> > > > + See also "Control Dependency".
> > >
> > > There should also be an entry for "Data Dependency", linked from here
> > > and from Control Dependency.
> > >
> > > > +Marked Access: An access to a variable that uses an special function or
> > > > + macro such as "r1 = READ_ONCE()" or "smp_store_release(&a, 1)".
> > >
> > > How about "r1 = READ_ONCE(x)"?
> >
> > Good catches! I am planning to squash the commit below into the
> > original. Does that cover it?
>
> No, because you didn't add a glossary entry for "Data Dependency" and
> there's no link from "Control Dependency" to "Data Dependency".

Sigh. I was thinking "entry in the list", and didn't even thing to
check for an entry in the glossary as a whole. With the patch below
(on top of the one sent earlier), are we good?

Thanx, Paul

------------------------------------------------------------------------

commit 5a49c32551e83d30e304d6c3fbb660737ba2654e
Author: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri Nov 6 11:57:25 2020 -0800

fixup! tools/memory-model: Add a glossary of LKMM terms

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxx>

diff --git a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/glossary.txt b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/glossary.txt
index 471bf13..b2da636 100644
--- a/tools/memory-model/Documentation/glossary.txt
+++ b/tools/memory-model/Documentation/glossary.txt
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ Control Dependency: When a later store's execution depends on a test
fragile, and can be easily destroyed by optimizing compilers.
Please see control-dependencies.txt for more information.

- See also "Address Dependency".
+ See also "Address Dependency" and "Data Dependency".

Cycle: Memory-barrier pairing is restricted to a pair of CPUs, as the
name suggests. And in a great many cases, a pair of CPUs is all
@@ -85,6 +85,23 @@ Cycle: Memory-barrier pairing is restricted to a pair of CPUs, as the

See also "Pairing".

+Data Dependency: When the data written by a later store is computed based
+ on the value returned by an earlier load, a "data dependency"
+ extends from that load to that later store. For example:
+
+ 1 r1 = READ_ONCE(x);
+ 2 WRITE_ONCE(y, r1 + 1);
+
+ In this case, the data dependency extends from the READ_ONCE()
+ on line 1 to the WRITE_ONCE() on line 2. Data dependencies are
+ fragile and can be easily destroyed by optimizing compilers.
+ Because optimizing compilers put a great deal of effort into
+ working out what values integer variables might have, this is
+ especially true in cases where the dependency is carried through
+ an integer.
+
+ See also "Address Dependency" and "Control Dependency".
+
From-Reads (fr): When one CPU's store to a given variable happened
too late to affect the value returned by another CPU's
load from that same variable, there is said to be a from-reads