Re: [PATCH] wait: fix false timeouts when using wait_event_timeout()

From: Imre Deak
Date: Tue Jun 04 2013 - 17:36:19 EST


On Tue, 2013-06-04 at 21:28 +0200, Oleg Nesterov wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Just noticed this commit...
>
> commit 4c663cfc523a88d97a8309b04a089c27dc57fd7e
> Author: Imre Deak <imre.deak@xxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Fri May 24 15:55:09 2013 -0700
>
> Many callers of the wait_event_timeout() and
> wait_event_interruptible_timeout() expect that the return value will be
> positive if the specified condition becomes true before the timeout
> elapses. However, at the moment this isn't guaranteed. If the wake-up
> handler is delayed enough, the time remaining until timeout will be
> calculated as 0 - and passed back as a return value - even if the
> condition became true before the timeout has passed.
>
> OK, agreed.
>
> --- a/include/linux/wait.h
> +++ b/include/linux/wait.h
> @@ -217,6 +217,8 @@ do { \
> if (!ret) \
> break; \
> } \
> + if (!ret && (condition)) \
> + ret = 1; \
> finish_wait(&wq, &__wait); \
> } while (0)
>
> Well, this evaluates "condition" twice, perhaps it would be more
> clean to do, say,
>
> #define __wait_event_timeout(wq, condition, ret) \
> do { \
> DEFINE_WAIT(__wait); \
> \
> for (;;) { \
> prepare_to_wait(&wq, &__wait, TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE); \
> if (condition) { \
> if (!ret) \
> ret = 1; \
> break; \
> } else if (!ret) \
> break; \
> ret = schedule_timeout(ret); \
> } \
> finish_wait(&wq, &__wait); \
> } while (0)
>
> but this is minor.
>
> @@ -233,8 +235,9 @@ do { \
> * wake_up() has to be called after changing any variable that could
> * change the result of the wait condition.
> *
> - * The function returns 0 if the @timeout elapsed, and the remaining
> - * jiffies if the condition evaluated to true before the timeout elapsed.
> + * The function returns 0 if the @timeout elapsed, or the remaining
> + * jiffies (at least 1) if the @condition evaluated to %true before
> + * the @timeout elapsed.
>
> This is still not true if timeout == 0.
>
> Shouldn't we also change wait_event_timeout() ? Say,
>
> #define wait_event_timeout(wq, condition, timeout) \
> ({ \
> long __ret = timeout; \
> if (!(condition)) \
> __wait_event_timeout(wq, condition, __ret); \
> else if (!__ret) \
> __ret = 1; \
> __ret; \
> })
>
> Or wait_event_timeout(timeout => 0) is not legal in a non-void context?
>
> To me the code like
>
> long wait_for_something(bool nonblock)
> {
> timeout = nonblock ? 0 : DEFAULT_TIMEOUT;
> return wait_event_timeout(..., timeout);
> }
>
> looks reasonable and correct. But it is not?

I don't see why it would be not legal. Note though that in the above
form wait_event_timeout(cond, 0) would still schedule() if cond is
false, which is not what I'd expect from a non-blocking function.

--Imre

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