On 1/19/2015 11:44 AM, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote: > 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.) > I really learned a good lesson here. Thanks for the thorough explanation! -- 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