* John Stultz <john.stultz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > The implicit rules for current->comm access being safe without locking are no > longer true. Accessing current->comm without holding the task lock may result > in null or incomplete strings (however, access won't run off the end of the > string). This is rather unfortunate - task->comm is used in a number of performance critical codepaths such as tracing. Why does this matter so much? A NULL string is not a big deal. Note, since task->comm is 16 bytes there's the CMPXCHG16B instruction on x86 which could be used to update it atomically, should atomicity really be desired. Thanks, Ingo -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxx For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>