From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-5.2 required=3.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, INCLUDES_PATCH,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_HELO_NONE,SPF_PASS,URIBL_BLOCKED, USER_AGENT_SANE_2 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5E1B4C433E0 for ; Fri, 22 May 2020 22:24:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [23.128.96.18]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 30AC220870 for ; Fri, 22 May 2020 22:24:14 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1731180AbgEVWYN (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 May 2020 18:24:13 -0400 Received: from mail.kernel.org ([198.145.29.99]:48852 "EHLO mail.kernel.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1731093AbgEVWYN (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 May 2020 18:24:13 -0400 Received: from oasis.local.home (cpe-66-24-58-225.stny.res.rr.com [66.24.58.225]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 331E32085B; Fri, 22 May 2020 22:24:12 +0000 (UTC) Date: Fri, 22 May 2020 18:24:09 -0400 From: Steven Rostedt To: Peter Zijlstra Cc: "Ahmed S. Darwish" , Ingo Molnar , Will Deacon , Thomas Gleixner , "Paul E. McKenney" , "Sebastian A. Siewior" , LKML , Jonathan Corbet , linux-doc@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH v1 09/25] Documentation: locking: Describe seqlock design and usage Message-ID: <20200522182409.4016d83c@oasis.local.home> In-Reply-To: <20200522180145.GR325280@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net> References: <20200519214547.352050-1-a.darwish@linutronix.de> <20200519214547.352050-10-a.darwish@linutronix.de> <20200522180145.GR325280@hirez.programming.kicks-ass.net> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.17.3 (GTK+ 2.24.32; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-doc-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org On Fri, 22 May 2020 20:01:45 +0200 Peter Zijlstra wrote: > On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 11:45:31PM +0200, Ahmed S. Darwish wrote: > > diff --git a/include/linux/seqlock.h b/include/linux/seqlock.h > > index d35be7709403..2a4af746b1da 100644 > > --- a/include/linux/seqlock.h > > +++ b/include/linux/seqlock.h > > @@ -1,36 +1,15 @@ > > /* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */ > > #ifndef __LINUX_SEQLOCK_H > > #define __LINUX_SEQLOCK_H > > + > > /* > > - * Reader/writer consistent mechanism without starving writers. This type of > > - * lock for data where the reader wants a consistent set of information > > - * and is willing to retry if the information changes. There are two types > > - * of readers: > > - * 1. Sequence readers which never block a writer but they may have to retry > > - * if a writer is in progress by detecting change in sequence number. > > - * Writers do not wait for a sequence reader. > > - * 2. Locking readers which will wait if a writer or another locking reader > > - * is in progress. A locking reader in progress will also block a writer > > - * from going forward. Unlike the regular rwlock, the read lock here is > > - * exclusive so that only one locking reader can get it. > > + * seqcount_t / seqlock_t - a reader-writer consistency mechanism with > > + * lockless readers (read-only retry loops), and no writer starvation. > > * > > - * This is not as cache friendly as brlock. Also, this may not work well > > - * for data that contains pointers, because any writer could > > - * invalidate a pointer that a reader was following. > > + * See Documentation/locking/seqlock.rst for full description. > > So I really really hate that... I _much_ prefer code comments to crappy > documents. Agreed. Comments are much less likely to bitrot than documents. The farther away the documentation is from the code, the quicker it becomes stale. It's fine to add "See Documentation/..." but please don't *ever* remove comments that's next to the actual code. -- Steve