To see why atomic_t is pure obfuscation: typedef struct { int counter; } atomic_t; So, counter is a plain int. On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 11:23:47AM -0800, Ray Jui wrote: > +static irqreturn_t bcm_iproc_i2c_isr(int irq, void *data) > +{ > + struct bcm_iproc_i2c_dev *iproc_i2c = data; > + u32 status = readl(iproc_i2c->base + IS_OFFSET); > + > + status &= ISR_MASK; > + > + if (!status) > + return IRQ_NONE; > + > + writel(status, iproc_i2c->base + IS_OFFSET); > + atomic_set(&iproc_i2c->xfer_is_done, 1); #define atomic_set(v,i) (((v)->counter) = (i)) So, this is the same as doing: iproc_i2c->xfer_is_done.counter = 1; which is merely setting the 'int' to 1. > + time_left = wait_for_completion_timeout(&iproc_i2c->done, time_left); > + > + /* disable all interrupts */ > + writel(0, iproc_i2c->base + IE_OFFSET); > + > + if (!time_left && !atomic_read(&iproc_i2c->xfer_is_done)) { #define atomic_read(v) ACCESS_ONCE((v)->counter) This is practically the same as: if (!time_left && !iproc_i2c->xfer_is_done.counter) { except that this access will be guaranteed to happen just once at this location (see ACCESS_ONCE() in include/linux/compiler.h). However, complete()..wait_for_completion() ensures that there are barriers in the way: complete takes a spinlock on the waiter, so the write to iproc_i2c->xfer_is_done.counter will be visible by the time wait_for_completion() returns, and wait_for_completion() also does. The same spinlock is also manipulated by wait_for_completion(), which means there's barriers there as well, so it can't cache the value of "counter" across that call. So, the "volatile" access guaranteed by ACCESS_ONCE() isn't even needed here. (It would be needed if you were spinning in a loop, calling no other functions - but then you're supposed to use cpu_relax() in that circumstance, which has a compiler barrier in it, which ensures that it will re-read such a variable each time.) -- FTTC broadband for 0.8mile line: currently at 10.5Mbps down 400kbps up according to speedtest.net. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-i2c" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html