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documentation: atomic_add_unless() doesn't imply mb() on failure

(sorry for being offtpoic, but while experts are here...)

A "typical" implementation of atomic_add_unless() can return 0 immediately
after the first atomic_read() (before doing cmpxchg). In that case it doesn't
provide any barrier semantics. See include/asm-ia64/atomic.h as an example.

We should either change the implementation, or fix the docs.

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Acked-by: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Oleg Nesterov 17 years ago
parent
commit
02c608c1fe
2 changed files with 3 additions and 2 deletions
  1. 2 1
      Documentation/atomic_ops.txt
  2. 1 1
      Documentation/memory-barriers.txt

+ 2 - 1
Documentation/atomic_ops.txt

@@ -186,7 +186,8 @@ If the atomic value v is not equal to u, this function adds a to v, and
 returns non zero. If v is equal to u then it returns zero. This is done as
 an atomic operation.
 
-atomic_add_unless requires explicit memory barriers around the operation.
+atomic_add_unless requires explicit memory barriers around the operation
+unless it fails (returns 0).
 
 atomic_inc_not_zero, equivalent to atomic_add_unless(v, 1, 0)
 

+ 1 - 1
Documentation/memory-barriers.txt

@@ -1493,7 +1493,7 @@ explicit lock operations, described later).  These include:
 	atomic_dec_and_test();
 	atomic_sub_and_test();
 	atomic_add_negative();
-	atomic_add_unless();
+	atomic_add_unless();	/* when succeeds (returns 1) */
 	test_and_set_bit();
 	test_and_clear_bit();
 	test_and_change_bit();