Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 09:58:53 -0700
From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
To: Chris Snook <csnook@redhat.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-arch@vger.kernel.org,
       torvalds@linux-foundation.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org,
       akpm@linux-foundation.org, ak@suse.de, heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com,
       davem@davemloft.net, schwidefsky@de.ibm.com, wensong@linux-vs.org,
       horms@verge.net.au, wjiang@resilience.com, cfriesen@nortel.com,
       zlynx@acm.org, rpjday@mindspring.com, jesper.juhl@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/24] make atomic_read() behave consistently on alpha
Message-ID: <20070809165853.GD8424@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Reply-To: paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com
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On Thu, Aug 09, 2007 at 12:36:17PM -0400, Chris Snook wrote:
> Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> >The compiler is within its rights to read a 32-bit quantity 16 bits at
> >at time, even on a 32-bit machine.  I would be glad to help pummel any
> >compiler writer that pulls such a dirty trick, but the C standard really
> >does permit this.
> 
> Yes, but we don't write code for these compilers.  There are countless 
> pieces of kernel code which would break in this condition, and there 
> doesn't seem to be any interest in fixing this.
> 
> >Use of volatile does in fact save you from the compiler pushing stores out
> >of loops regardless of whether you are also doing reads.  The C standard
> >has the notion of sequence points, which occur at various places including
> >the ends of statements and the control expressions for "if" and "while"
> >statements.  The compiler is not permitted to move volatile references
> >across a sequence point.  Therefore, the compiler is not allowed to
> >push a volatile store out of a loop.  Now the CPU might well do such a
> >reordering, but that is a separate issue to be dealt with via memory
> >barriers.  Note that it is the CPU and I/O system, not the compiler,
> >that is forcing you to use reads to flush writes to MMIO registers.
> 
> Sequence points enforce read-after-write ordering, not write-after-write.  
> We flush writes with reads for MMIO because of this effect as well as the 
> CPU/bus effects.

Neither volatile reads nor volatile writes may be moved across sequence
points.

> >And you would be amazed at what compiler writers will do in order to
> >get an additional fraction of a percent out of SpecCPU...
> 
> Probably not :)
> 
> >In short, please retain atomic_set()'s volatility, especially on those
> >architectures that declared the atomic_t's counter to be volatile.
> 
> Like i386 and x86_64?  These used to have volatile in the atomic_t 
> declaration. We removed it, and the sky did not fall.

Interesting.  You tested all possible configs on all possible hardware?

						Thanx, Paul
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