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Date:   Tue, 3 Apr 2018 15:35:43 +0200
From:   Andrea Parri <andrea.parri@amarulasolutions.com>
To:     David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Cc:     paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com, Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        Andrea Parri <parri.andrea@gmail.com>,
        Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>,
        Will Deacon <will.deacon@arm.com>,
        Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@gmail.com>,
        Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@gmail.com>,
        Jade Alglave <j.alglave@ucl.ac.uk>,
        Luc Maranget <luc.maranget@inria.fr>,
        Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] locking: Document the semantics of
 spin_is_locked()
Message-ID: <20180403133543.GA26653@andrea>
References: <1522600912-6208-2-git-send-email-andrea.parri@amarulasolutions.com>
 <1522600912-6208-1-git-send-email-andrea.parri@amarulasolutions.com>
 <29562.1522759749@warthog.procyon.org.uk>
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On Tue, Apr 03, 2018 at 01:49:09PM +0100, David Howells wrote:
> Andrea Parri <andrea.parri@amarulasolutions.com> wrote:
> 
> > +/**
> > + * spin_is_locked() - Check whether a spinlock is locked.
> > + * @lock: Pointer to the spinlock.
> > + *
> > + * This function is NOT required to provide any memory ordering
> > + * guarantees; it could be used for debugging purposes or, when
> > + * additional synchronization is needed, accompanied with other
> > + * constructs (memory barriers) enforcing the synchronization.
> > + *
> > + * Return: 1, if @lock is (found to be) locked; 0, otherwise.
> 
> It's more complicated than that.  This function is dangerous and should be
> used with extreme care.  In the case where CONFIG_SMP=n the value is locked
> one way or the other and it might be the wrong way.

You mean "unlocked"? (aka, return 0)

  Andrea


> 
> David