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Documentation/arm/swp_emulation 1.18 KB
64d2dc384   Leif Lindholm   ARM: 6396/1: Add ...
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  Software emulation of deprecated SWP instruction (CONFIG_SWP_EMULATE)
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  ARMv6 architecture deprecates use of the SWP/SWPB instructions, and recommeds
  moving to the load-locked/store-conditional instructions LDREX and STREX.
  
  ARMv7 multiprocessing extensions introduce the ability to disable these
  instructions, triggering an undefined instruction exception when executed.
  Trapped instructions are emulated using an LDREX/STREX or LDREXB/STREXB
  sequence. If a memory access fault (an abort) occurs, a segmentation fault is
  signalled to the triggering process.
  
  /proc/cpu/swp_emulation holds some statistics/information, including the PID of
  the last process to trigger the emulation to be invocated. For example:
  ---
  Emulated SWP:		12
  Emulated SWPB:		0
  Aborted SWP{B}:		1
  Last process:		314
  ---
  
  NOTE: when accessing uncached shared regions, LDREX/STREX rely on an external
  transaction monitoring block called a global monitor to maintain update
  atomicity. If your system does not implement a global monitor, this option can
  cause programs that perform SWP operations to uncached memory to deadlock, as
  the STREX operation will always fail.