Commit 091e635e6735fa4496c4a18e7e967b58e961303c

Authored by Russell King
Committed by Linus Torvalds
1 parent 7731d9a5d4

Documentation/volatile-considered-harmful.txt: correct cpu_relax() documentation

cpu_relax() is documented in volatile-considered-harmful.txt to be a
memory barrier.  However, everyone with the exception of Blackfin and
possibly ia64 defines cpu_relax() to be a compiler barrier.

Make the documentation reflect the general concensus.

Linus sayeth:

: I don't think it was ever the intention that it would be seen as anything
: but a compiler barrier, although it is obviously implied that it might
: well perform some per-architecture actions that have "memory barrier-like"
: semantics.
:
: After all, the whole and only point of the "cpu_relax()" thing is to tell
: the CPU that we're busy-looping on some event.
:
: And that "event" might be (and often is) about reading the same memory
: location over and over until it changes to what we want it to be.  So it's
: quite possible that on various architectures the "cpu_relax()" could be
: about making sure that such a tight loop on loads doesn't starve cache
: transactions, for example - and as such look a bit like a memory barrier
: from a CPU standpoint.
:
: But it's not meant to have any kind of architectural memory ordering
: semantics as far as the kernel is concerned - those must come from other
: sources.

Signed-off-by: Russell King <rmk+kernel@arm.linux.org.uk>
Cc: <linux-arch@vger.kernel.org>
Acked-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

Showing 1 changed file with 3 additions and 3 deletions Side-by-side Diff

Documentation/volatile-considered-harmful.txt
... ... @@ -63,9 +63,9 @@
63 63 cpu_relax();
64 64  
65 65 The cpu_relax() call can lower CPU power consumption or yield to a
66   -hyperthreaded twin processor; it also happens to serve as a memory barrier,
67   -so, once again, volatile is unnecessary. Of course, busy-waiting is
68   -generally an anti-social act to begin with.
  66 +hyperthreaded twin processor; it also happens to serve as a compiler
  67 +barrier, so, once again, volatile is unnecessary. Of course, busy-
  68 +waiting is generally an anti-social act to begin with.
69 69  
70 70 There are still a few rare situations where volatile makes sense in the
71 71 kernel: