tree db7b05810c5cc61c89b856996174e31147611cba
parent d90d2c385d4d832428d1e51c2a7edeef39c822f5
author David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> 1149958452 -0700
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org> 1149962525 -0700

[PATCH] Further alterations for memory barrier document

From: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>

Apply some alterations to the memory barrier document that I worked out
with Paul McKenney of IBM, plus some of the alterations suggested by Alan
Stern.

The following changes were made:

 (*) One of the examples given for what can happen with overlapping memory
     barriers was wrong.

 (*) The description of general memory barriers said that a general barrier is
     a combination of a read barrier and a write barrier.  This isn't entirely
     true: it implies both, but is more than a combination of both.

 (*) The first example in the "SMP Barrier Pairing" section was wrong: the
     loads around the read barrier need to touch the memory locations in the
     opposite order to the stores around the write barrier.

 (*) Added a note to make explicit that the loads should be in reverse order to
     the stores.

 (*) Adjusted the diagrams in the "Examples Of Memory Barrier Sequences"
     section to make them clearer.  Added a couple of diagrams to make it more
     clear as to how it could go wrong without the barrier.

 (*) Added a section on memory speculation.

 (*) Dropped any references to memory allocation routines doing memory
     barriers.  They may do sometimes, but it can't be relied on.  This may be
     worthy of further documentation later.

 (*) Made the fact that a LOCK followed by an UNLOCK should not be considered a
     full memory barrier more explicit and gave an example.

Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@us.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>