[PATCH] once_lite: Simplify condition handling and fix context analysis

From: Marco Elver

Date: Thu Sep 03 2026 - 06:44:23 EST


When WARN_ON_ONCE() wraps a conditional lock acquisition (such as
down_write_trylock()) on architectures relying on DO_ONCE_LITE_IF()
(e.g. arm), Clang's context analysis (Thread Safety Analysis) failed
with a false positive:

fs/ext2/xattr.c:825:6: error: rw_semaphore 'EXT2_I().xattr_sem' is not held on every path through here [-Werror,-Wthread-safety-analysis]
825 | if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!down_write_trylock(&EXT2_I(inode)->xattr_sem)))
| ^

This happens because DO_ONCE_LITE_IF() branches on __ONCE_LITE_IF()'s
return value (__ret_once), creating an intermediate branch merge point
where the lock may or may not be held depending on whether the once-flag
(__already_done) was already set. Because the merge branch condition is
__ret_once rather than the trylock predicate (__ret_do_once), Clang
cannot reconcile the lockset at the branch merge points.

Fix it by refactoring __ONCE_LITE_IF() into an unconditional
__ONCE_LITE() primitive and redefining __ONCE_LITE_IF(condition) as:

(unlikely(condition) && __ONCE_LITE())

This simplifies the implementation, short-circuits evaluation so that
__ONCE_LITE() is not called when the condition is false, and ensures
that DO_ONCE_LITE_IF() only enters __ONCE_LITE() when __ret_do_once is
true.

Reported-by: Nathan Chancellor <nathan@xxxxxxxxxx>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260903072759.GA1750084@ax162/
Signed-off-by: Marco Elver <elver@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
include/linux/once_lite.h | 8 +++++---
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/once_lite.h b/include/linux/once_lite.h
index 236592c4eeb1..5e2b67039aaf 100644
--- a/include/linux/once_lite.h
+++ b/include/linux/once_lite.h
@@ -10,19 +10,21 @@
#define DO_ONCE_LITE(func, ...) \
DO_ONCE_LITE_IF(true, func, ##__VA_ARGS__)

-#define __ONCE_LITE_IF(condition) \
+#define __ONCE_LITE() \
({ \
static bool __section(".data..once") __already_done; \
- bool __ret_cond = !!(condition); \
bool __ret_once = false; \
\
- if (unlikely(__ret_cond) && unlikely(!__already_done)) {\
+ if (unlikely(!__already_done)) { \
__already_done = true; \
__ret_once = true; \
} \
unlikely(__ret_once); \
})

+#define __ONCE_LITE_IF(condition) \
+ (unlikely(condition) && __ONCE_LITE())
+
#define DO_ONCE_LITE_IF(condition, func, ...) \
({ \
bool __ret_do_once = !!(condition); \
--
2.55.0.970.g62bdec98f9-goog