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authorJoel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>2018-10-08 18:33:41 -0700
committerPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.ibm.com>2018-11-12 08:56:25 -0800
commit93eb14201fc690687c2d94865bc38c1aa23356b8 (patch)
treec724b95dbf03d099e65a96de629b7ea965e779db /Documentation/RCU
parent1c7d6d4411a1ce7530cbdc4605261c560e07d51a (diff)
downloadlinux-93eb14201fc690687c2d94865bc38c1aa23356b8.tar.bz2
doc: Make reader aware of rcu_dereference_protected
The whatisRCU.txt document says rcu_dereference() cannot be used outside of rcu_read_lock() protected sections. The commit adds a mention of rcu_dereference_protected(), so that the new reader knows that this API can be used to avoid update-side use of rcu_read_lock() and rcu_read_unlock(). Cc: tytso@mit.edu Suggested-by: tytso@mit.edu Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org> [ paulmck: Update wording, including further feedback from Joel. ] Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.ibm.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/RCU')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt15
1 files changed, 14 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt b/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt
index 7c33445fd0e5..4a6854318b17 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt
@@ -266,7 +266,7 @@ rcu_dereference()
unnecessary overhead on Alpha CPUs.
Note that the value returned by rcu_dereference() is valid
- only within the enclosing RCU read-side critical section.
+ only within the enclosing RCU read-side critical section [1].
For example, the following is -not- legal:
rcu_read_lock();
@@ -292,6 +292,19 @@ rcu_dereference()
typically used indirectly, via the _rcu list-manipulation
primitives, such as list_for_each_entry_rcu().
+ [1] The variant rcu_dereference_protected() can be used outside
+ of an RCU read-side critical section as long as the usage is
+ protected by locks acquired by the update-side code. This variant
+ avoids the lockdep warning that would happen when using (for
+ example) rcu_dereference() without rcu_read_lock() protection.
+ Using rcu_dereference_protected() also has the advantage
+ of permitting compiler optimizations that rcu_dereference()
+ must prohibit. The rcu_dereference_protected() variant takes
+ a lockdep expression to indicate which locks must be acquired
+ by the caller. If the indicated protection is not provided,
+ a lockdep splat is emitted. See RCU/Design/Requirements.html
+ and the API's code comments for more details and example usage.
+
The following diagram shows how each API communicates among the
reader, updater, and reclaimer.