Manfred> I try to thread ipc/msg.c. My new design is nearly finished,
Manfred> but I have one problem: In a certain case, I want to rely on
Manfred> memory ordering instead of a spinlock:
Manfred> struct test { atomic_t a; atomic_t b; } CPU1:
Manfred> atomic_set(a,return_value); atomic_set(b,1234);
Manfred> CPU2: if(atomic_read(b) == 1234) return atomic_read(a);
Manfred> IIRC, the x86 CPU can reorder read ahead of write, and
Manfred> atomic_read(), atomic_set() are normal read/write operations,
Manfred> so is this code SMP safe? Which memory barrier calls are
Manfred> required for portability?
atomic_foo() should be ordered, at least that the idea behind it as
far as I understand.
Otherwise you want to look at mb(), rmb() and wmb(). mb() is a generic
memory barrier, wmb() makes sure a write is issues before another
write() and rmb() ... you get the idea ;-)
Jes
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