aha/Documentation/RCU/rcuref.txt
Nick Piggin 095975da26 [PATCH] rcu file: use atomic primitives
Use atomic_inc_not_zero for rcu files instead of special case rcuref.

Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
Cc: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
2006-01-08 20:13:48 -08:00

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Refcounter design for elements of lists/arrays protected by RCU.
Refcounting on elements of lists which are protected by traditional
reader/writer spinlocks or semaphores are straight forward as in:
1. 2.
add() search_and_reference()
{ {
alloc_object read_lock(&list_lock);
... search_for_element
atomic_set(&el->rc, 1); atomic_inc(&el->rc);
write_lock(&list_lock); ...
add_element read_unlock(&list_lock);
... ...
write_unlock(&list_lock); }
}
3. 4.
release_referenced() delete()
{ {
... write_lock(&list_lock);
atomic_dec(&el->rc, relfunc) ...
... delete_element
} write_unlock(&list_lock);
...
if (atomic_dec_and_test(&el->rc))
kfree(el);
...
}
If this list/array is made lock free using rcu as in changing the
write_lock in add() and delete() to spin_lock and changing read_lock
in search_and_reference to rcu_read_lock(), the atomic_get in
search_and_reference could potentially hold reference to an element which
has already been deleted from the list/array. atomic_inc_not_zero takes
care of this scenario. search_and_reference should look as;
1. 2.
add() search_and_reference()
{ {
alloc_object rcu_read_lock();
... search_for_element
atomic_set(&el->rc, 1); if (atomic_inc_not_zero(&el->rc)) {
write_lock(&list_lock); rcu_read_unlock();
return FAIL;
add_element }
... ...
write_unlock(&list_lock); rcu_read_unlock();
} }
3. 4.
release_referenced() delete()
{ {
... write_lock(&list_lock);
atomic_dec(&el->rc, relfunc) ...
... delete_element
} write_unlock(&list_lock);
...
if (atomic_dec_and_test(&el->rc))
call_rcu(&el->head, el_free);
...
}
Sometimes, reference to the element need to be obtained in the
update (write) stream. In such cases, atomic_inc_not_zero might be an
overkill since the spinlock serialising list updates are held. atomic_inc
is to be used in such cases.