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Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/atomic_ops.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/atomic_ops.txt | 14 |
1 files changed, 14 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/atomic_ops.txt b/Documentation/atomic_ops.txt index d46306fea23..f20c10c2858 100644 --- a/Documentation/atomic_ops.txt +++ b/Documentation/atomic_ops.txt @@ -418,6 +418,20 @@ brothers: */ smp_mb__after_clear_bit(); +There are two special bitops with lock barrier semantics (acquire/release, +same as spinlocks). These operate in the same way as their non-_lock/unlock +postfixed variants, except that they are to provide acquire/release semantics, +respectively. This means they can be used for bit_spin_trylock and +bit_spin_unlock type operations without specifying any more barriers. + + int test_and_set_bit_lock(unsigned long nr, unsigned long *addr); + void clear_bit_unlock(unsigned long nr, unsigned long *addr); + void __clear_bit_unlock(unsigned long nr, unsigned long *addr); + +The __clear_bit_unlock version is non-atomic, however it still implements +unlock barrier semantics. This can be useful if the lock itself is protecting +the other bits in the word. + Finally, there are non-atomic versions of the bitmask operations provided. They are used in contexts where some other higher-level SMP locking scheme is being used to protect the bitmask, and thus less |