[PATCH 09/16] fs: exit early in generic_update_time when there is no work

From: Christoph Hellwig

Date: Thu Nov 20 2025 - 01:50:20 EST


Exit early if not attributes are to be updated, to avoid a spurious call
to __mark_inode_dirty which can turn into a fairly expensive no-op due to
the extra checks and locking.

Signed-off-by: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxx>
---
fs/inode.c | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)

diff --git a/fs/inode.c b/fs/inode.c
index 15a8b2cf78ef..cda78f76e1dd 100644
--- a/fs/inode.c
+++ b/fs/inode.c
@@ -2110,6 +2110,9 @@ int generic_update_time(struct inode *inode, int flags)
int updated = inode_update_timestamps(inode, flags);
int dirty_flags = 0;

+ if (!updated)
+ return 0;
+
if (updated & (S_ATIME|S_MTIME|S_CTIME))
dirty_flags = inode->i_sb->s_flags & SB_LAZYTIME ? I_DIRTY_TIME : I_DIRTY_SYNC;
if (updated & S_VERSION)
--
2.47.3