Re: [PATCH 3/3] WorkStruct: Use direct assignment rather than cmpxchg()

From: Russell King
Date: Thu Dec 07 2006 - 18:43:30 EST


On Thu, Dec 07, 2006 at 08:06:39PM +0000, David Howells wrote:
> Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > and we can assume (and ensure) that a failing test_and_set_bit() will not
> > write to the affected word at all.
>
> You may not assume that; and indeed that is not so in the generic
> spinlock-based bitops or ARM pre-v6 or PA-RISC or sparc32 or ...

Incorrect. pre-v6 ARM bitops for test_and_xxx_bit() all do:

save and disable irqs
load value
test bit
if not in desired state, alter bit and write it back
restore irqs

but I don't guarantee that we'll always do that - indeed, post-armv6
bitops always write back even if the bit was in the desired state.

--
Russell King
Linux kernel 2.6 ARM Linux - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
maintainer of:
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