Re: [PATCH 00/18] locking/atomic: atomic64 type cleanup

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Sat, May 25, 2019 at 12:43:40AM +0200, Andrea Parri wrote:
> > ---
> > Subject: Documentation/atomic_t.txt: Clarify pure non-rmw usage
> > 
> > Clarify that pure non-RMW usage of atomic_t is pointless, there is
> > nothing 'magical' about atomic_set() / atomic_read().
> > 
> > This is something that seems to confuse people, because I happen upon it
> > semi-regularly.
> > 
> > Acked-by: Will Deacon <will.deacon@xxxxxxx>
> > Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >  Documentation/atomic_t.txt | 6 ++++--
> >  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/Documentation/atomic_t.txt b/Documentation/atomic_t.txt
> > index dca3fb0554db..89eae7f6b360 100644
> > --- a/Documentation/atomic_t.txt
> > +++ b/Documentation/atomic_t.txt
> > @@ -81,9 +81,11 @@ SEMANTICS
> >  
> >  The non-RMW ops are (typically) regular LOADs and STOREs and are canonically
> >  implemented using READ_ONCE(), WRITE_ONCE(), smp_load_acquire() and
> > -smp_store_release() respectively.
> > +smp_store_release() respectively. Therefore, if you find yourself only using
> > +the Non-RMW operations of atomic_t, you do not in fact need atomic_t at all
> > +and are doing it wrong.
> 
> The counterargument (not so theoretic, just look around in the kernel!) is:
> we all 'forget' to use READ_ONCE() and WRITE_ONCE(), it should be difficult
> or more difficult to forget to use atomic_read() and atomic_set()...   IAC,
> I wouldn't call any of them 'wrong'.

I'm thinking you mean that the type system isn't helping us with
READ/WRITE_ONCE() like it does with atomic_t ? And while I agree that
there is room for improvement there, that doesn't mean we should start
using atomic*_t all over the place for that.

Part of the problem with READ/WRITE_ONCE() is that it serves a dual
purpose; we've tried to untangle that at some point, but Linus wasn't
having it.