Re: [PATCH 0/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently across all architectures

[Segher Boessenkool]

> > > Of course, if we find there are more callers in the kernel who want 
> > > the
> > > volatility behaviour than those who don't care, we can re-define the
> > > existing ops to such variants, and re-name the existing definitions 
> > > to
> > > somethine else, say "atomic_read_nonvolatile" for all I care.
> >
> > Do we really need another set of APIs?
>
> Well, if there's one set of users who do care about volatile behaviour,
> and another set that doesn't, it only sounds correct to provide both
> those APIs, instead of forcing one behaviour on all users.

But since there currently is only one such API, and there are
users expecting the stronger behaviour, the only sane thing to
do is let the API provide that behaviour.  You can always add
a new API with weaker behaviour later, and move users that are
okay with it over to that new API.


Segher

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