Subject: Re: [PATCH -mm 4/8] slub: never fail kmem_cache_shrink

On Sat, 31 May 2014, Vladimir Davydov wrote:

> ... which means more async workers, more complication to kmemcg code :-(
>
> Sorry, but I just don't get why we can't make kmem_cache_shrink never
> fail? Is failing de-fragmentation, which is even not implied by the
> function declaration, so critical that should be noted? If so, we can
> return an error while still shrinking empty slabs...

There could be other reasons for failure in the future as
kmem_cache_shrink is updated. Requiring kmem_cache_shrink to never fail
may cause problems for future modifications.

> If you just don't like the code after the patch, here is another, less
> intrusive version doing practically the same. Would it be better?

That looks acceptable.

Acked-by: Christoph Lameter <[email protected]>