27 May, 2011
1 commit
-
On most architectures division is an expensive operation and accessing an
element currently requires four of them. This performance penalty
effectively precludes flex arrays from being used on any kind of fast
path. However, two of these divisions can be handled at creation time and
the others can be replaced by a reciprocal divide, completely avoiding
real divisions on access.[eparis@redhat.com: rebase on top of changes to support 0 len elements]
[eparis@redhat.com: initialize part_nr when array fits entirely in base]
Signed-off-by: Jesse Gross
Signed-off-by: Eric Paris
Cc: Dave Hansen
Cc: David Rientjes
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
29 Apr, 2011
3 commits
-
flex_arrays are supposed to be a replacement for:
kmalloc(num_elements * sizeof(element))If kmalloc is given 0 num_elements or a 0 size element it will happily return
ZERO_SIZE_PTR. Which looks like a valid allocation, but which will explode if
something actually try to use it. The current flex_array code will return an
equivalent result if num_elements is 0, but will fail to work if
sizeof(element) is 0. This patch allows allocation to work even for 0 size
elements. It will cause flex_arrays to explode though if they are used.
Imitating the kmalloc behavior.Based-on-patch-by: Steffen Klassert
Signed-off-by: Eric Paris
Acked-by: Dave Hansen -
Just like kmalloc will allow one to allocate a 0 length segment of memory
flex arrays should do the same thing. It should bomb if you try to use
something, but it should at least allow the allocation.This is needed because when SELinux switched to using flex_arrays in 2.6.38
the inability to allocate a 0 length array resulted in SELinux policy load
returning -ENOSPC when previously it worked.Based-on-patch-by: Steffen Klassert
Signed-off-by: Eric Paris
Tested-by: Chris Richards
Cc: stable@kernel.org [2.6.38+] -
Change flex_array_prealloc to take the number of elements for which space
should be allocated instead of the last (inclusive) element. Users
and documentation are updated accordingly. flex_arrays got introduced before
they had users. When folks started using it, they ended up needing a
different API than was coded up originally. This swaps over to the API that
folks apparently need.Based-on-patch-by: Steffen Klassert
Signed-off-by: Eric Paris
Tested-by: Chris Richards
Acked-by: Dave Hansen
Cc: stable@kernel.org [2.6.38+]
14 Jan, 2011
1 commit
-
Alex said:
I want to use flex_array to store a sparse array of ATM cell
re-assembly buffers for my ATM over Ethernet driver. Using the per-vcc
user_back structure causes problems when stacked with things like
br2684.Add EXPORT_SYMBOL() for all publically accessible flex array functions
and move to obj-y so that modules may use this library.Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Cc: Dave Hansen
Cc: Paul Mundt
Reported-by: Alex Bennee
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
10 Aug, 2010
1 commit
-
Getting and putting arrays of pointers with flex arrays is a PITA. You
have to remember to pass &ptr to the _put and you have to do weird and
wacky casting to get the ptr back from the _get. Add two functions
flex_array_get_ptr() and flex_array_put_ptr() to handle all of the magic.[akpm@linux-foundation.org: simplification suggested by Joe]
Signed-off-by: Eric Paris
Cc: David Rientjes
Cc: Dave Hansen
Cc: Joe Perches
Cc: James Morris
Cc: Joe Perches
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
25 Apr, 2010
1 commit
-
memset() is called with the wrong address and the kernel panics.
Signed-off-by: Changli Gao
Cc: Patrick McHardy
Acked-by: David Rientjes
Cc:
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
22 Sep, 2009
5 commits
-
Add kerneldoc annotations for function formals of type struct flex_array
and gfp_t which are currently lacking.Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Cc: Dave Hansen
Cc: Randy Dunlap
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
FLEX_ARRAY_INIT(element_size, total_nr_elements) cannot determine if
either parameter is valid, so flex arrays which are statically allocated
with this interface can easily become corrupted or reference beyond its
allocated memory.This removes FLEX_ARRAY_INIT() as a struct flex_array initializer since no
initializer may perform the required checking. Instead, the array is now
defined with a new interface:DEFINE_FLEX_ARRAY(name, element_size, total_nr_elements)
This may be prefixed with `static' for file scope.
This interface includes compile-time checking of the parameters to ensure
they are valid. Since the validity of both element_size and
total_nr_elements depend on FLEX_ARRAY_BASE_SIZE and FLEX_ARRAY_PART_SIZE,
the kernel build will fail if either of these predefined values changes
such that the array parameters are no longer valid.Since BUILD_BUG_ON() requires compile time constants, several of the
static inline functions that were once local to lib/flex_array.c had to be
moved to include/linux/flex_array.h.Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Acked-by: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
Add a new function to the flex_array API:
int flex_array_shrink(struct flex_array *fa)
This function will free all unused second-level pages. Since elements are
now poisoned if they are not allocated with __GFP_ZERO, it's possible to
identify parts that consist solely of unused elements.flex_array_shrink() returns the number of pages freed.
Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Cc: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
Newly initialized flex_array's and/or flex_array_part's are now poisoned
with a new poison value, FLEX_ARRAY_FREE. It's value is similar to
POISON_FREE used in the various slab allocators, but is different to
distinguish between flex array's poisoned kmem and slab allocator poisoned
kmem.This will allow us to identify flex_array_part's that only contain free
elements (and free them with an addition to the flex_array API). This
could also be extended in the future to identify `get' uses on elements
that have not been `put'.If __GFP_ZERO is passed for a part's gfp mask, the poisoning is avoided.
These elements are considered to be in-use since they have been
initialized.Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Cc: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
Add a new function to the flex_array API:
int flex_array_clear(struct flex_array *fa,
unsigned int element_nr)This function will zero the element at element_nr in the flex_array.
Although this is equivalent to using flex_array_put() and passing a
pointer to zero'd memory, flex_array_clear() does not require such a
pointer to memory that would most likely need to be allocated on the
caller's stack which could be significantly large depending on
element_size.Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Cc: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
27 Aug, 2009
3 commits
-
It's problematic to allow signed element_nr's or total's to be passed as
part of the flex array API.flex_array_alloc() allows total_nr_elements to be set to a negative
quantity, which is obviously erroneous.flex_array_get() and flex_array_put() allows negative array indices in
dereferencing an array part, which could address memory mapped before
struct flex_array.The fix is to convert all existing element_nr formals to be qualified as
unsigned. Existing checks to compare it to total_nr_elements or the max
array size based on element_size need not be changed.Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Cc: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
flex_array_free_parts() does not take `src' or `element_nr' formals, so
remove their respective comments.Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Acked-by: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds -
If all array elements fit into the base structure and data is copied using
flex_array_put() starting at a non-zero index, flex_array_get() will fail
to return the data.This fixes the bug by only checking for NULL parts when all elements do
not fit in the base structure when flex_array_get() is used. Otherwise,
fa_element_to_part_nr() will always be 0 since there are no parts
structures needed and such element may never have been put. Thus, it will
remain NULL due to the kzalloc() of the base.Additionally, flex_array_put() now only checks for a NULL part when all
elements do not fit in the base structure. This is otherwise unnecessary
since the base structure is guaranteed to exist (or we would have already
hit a NULL pointer).Signed-off-by: David Rientjes
Acked-by: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
05 Aug, 2009
1 commit
-
flex_array_get() calculates an index value, then drops it on the floor;
simply remove it.Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet
Acked-by: Dave Hansen
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
30 Jul, 2009
1 commit
-
Once a structure goes over PAGE_SIZE*2, we see occasional allocation
failures. Some people have chosen to switch over to things like vmalloc()
that will let them keep array-like access to such a large structures.
But, vmalloc() has plenty of downsides.Here's an alternative. I think it's what Andrew was suggesting here:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/7/2/518
I call it a flexible array. It does all of its work in PAGE_SIZE bits, so
never does an order>0 allocation. The base level has
PAGE_SIZE-2*sizeof(int) bytes of storage for pointers to the second level.
So, with a 32-bit arch, you get about 4MB (4183112 bytes) of total
storage when the objects pack nicely into a page. It is half that on
64-bit because the pointers are twice the size. There's a table detailing
this in the code.There are kerneldocs for the functions, but here's an
overview:flex_array_alloc() - dynamically allocate a base structure
flex_array_free() - free the array and all of the
second-level pages
flex_array_free_parts() - free the second-level pages, but
not the base (for static bases)
flex_array_put() - copy into the array at the given index
flex_array_get() - copy out of the array at the given index
flex_array_prealloc() - preallocate the second-level pages
between the given indexes to
guarantee no allocs will occur at
put() time.We could also potentially just pass the "element_size" into each of the
API functions instead of storing it internally. That would get us one
more base pointer on 32-bit.I've been testing this by running it in userspace. The header and patch
that I've been using are here, as well as the little script I'm using to
generate the size table which goes in the kerneldocs.http://sr71.net/~dave/linux/flexarray/
[akpm@linux-foundation.org: coding-style fixes]
Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen
Reviewed-by: KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
