[PATCH RESEND v1 0/2] docs/memory-barriers.txt: Fix confusing name of 'data dependency barrier'

[Akira Yokosawa]

I used Paul's old email address in RFC and v1.  My bad.
Sorry for making noise to other recipients.

Paul, please see RFC [1] for the discussion so far.
There was no response to v1.
-----

Hi all,

This is a revised patch set of RFC [1].

Discussion so far is about possible follow-up improvements,
so I hereby submit this set as a "v1".

Changes since RFC [1]:

  - Rename title of Patch 1/2.
  - Remove note on the rename of section "DATA DEPENDENCY BARRIER".
    Rational in the changelog should suffice.
  - Wordsmith by self review.
  - Add Patch 2/2 (fixup of long lines).

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-doc/cc2c7885-ac75-24f3-e18a-e77f97c91b4c@xxxxxxxxx/ # RFC

For your convenience, diff of "v1 1/2" vs RFC is appended below.

Following is the explanation of background in RFC (with typo fixes):
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a response to Michael's report back in last November [2].

[2]: "data dependency naming inconsistency":
     https://lore.kernel.org/r/20211011064233-mutt-send-email-mst@xxxxxxxxxx/

In the thread, I suggested removing all the explanations of "data dependency
barriers", which Paul thought was reasonable.

However, such removal would require involved rewrites in the infamously
hard-to-grasp document, which is beyond my capability.
I have become more inclined to just substitute "data dependency barrier"
with "address-dependency barrier" considering that READ_ONCE() still has
an implicit address-dependency barrier.

This patch set is the result of such an attempt.

Note: I made a mistake in the thread above. Kernel APIs for explicit data
dependency barriers were removed in v5.9.
I was confused the removal with the addition of the barrier to Alpha's
READ_ONCE() in v4.15.

diff of "v1 1/2" vs RFC
------------------------------------------------------------------
diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
index 306afa1f9347..bdbea3cc66a3 100644
--- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
+++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
@@ -391,8 +391,8 @@ Memory barriers come in four basic varieties:
      memory system as time progresses.  All stores _before_ a write barrier
      will occur _before_ all the stores after the write barrier.
 
-     [!] Note that write barriers should normally be paired with read- or address-
-     dependency barriers; see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
+     [!] Note that write barriers should normally be paired with read or
+     address-dependency barriers; see the "SMP barrier pairing" subsection.
 
 
  (2) Address-dependency barriers (historical).
@@ -561,17 +561,14 @@ As of v4.15 of the Linux kernel, an smp_mb() was added to READ_ONCE() for
 DEC Alpha, which means that about the only people who need to pay attention
 to this section are those working on DEC Alpha architecture-specific code
 and those working on READ_ONCE() itself.  For those who need it, and for
-those who are interested in the history, here is the story of address-
-dependency barriers.
+those who are interested in the history, here is the story of
+address-dependency barriers.
 
-[!] The title of this section was renamed from "DATA DEPENDENCY BARRIERS"
-to prevent developer confusion as "data dependencies" usually refers to
-load-to-store data dependencies.
-While address dependencies are observed in both load-to-load and load-to-
-store relations, address-dependency barriers concern only load-to-load
-situations.
+[!] While address dependencies are observed in both load-to-load and
+load-to-store relations, address-dependency barriers are not necessary
+for load-to-store situations.
 
-The usage requirements of address-dependency barriers are a little subtle, and
+The requirement of address-dependency barriers is a little subtle, and
 it's not always obvious that they're needed.  To illustrate, consider the
 following sequence of events:
 
@@ -602,8 +599,8 @@ While this may seem like a failure of coherency or causality maintenance, it
 isn't, and this behaviour can be observed on certain real CPUs (such as the DEC
 Alpha).
 
-To deal with this, an implicit address-dependency barrier of READ_ONCE()
-or better must be inserted between the address load and the data load:
+To deal with this, READ_ONCE() provides an implicit address-dependency
+barrier since kernel release v4.15:
 
 	CPU 1		      CPU 2
 	===============	      ===============
@@ -659,11 +656,9 @@ can be used to record rare error conditions and the like, and the CPUs'
 naturally occurring ordering prevents such records from being lost.
 
 
-Note well that the ordering provided by an address or a data dependency is local to
+Note well that the ordering provided by an address dependency is local to
 the CPU containing it.  See the section on "Multicopy atomicity" for
 more information.
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------

        Thanks, Akira
--
Akira Yokosawa (2):
  docs/memory-barriers.txt: Fix confusing name of 'data dependency
    barrier'
  docs/memory-barriers.txt: Fixup long lines

 Documentation/memory-barriers.txt | 177 ++++++++++++++++--------------
 1 file changed, 95 insertions(+), 82 deletions(-)


base-commit: c09ca10d879bae4a8df842dbe8d6bd8b87830633
-- 
2.25.1