On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 2:51 PM, Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Good points, and after_spinlock() works for me from an RCU perspective. Note that there's still a semantic question about exactly what that "after_spinlock()" is: would it be a memory barrier *only* for the CPU that actually does the spinlock? Or is it that "third CPU" order? IOW, it would stil not necessarily make your "unlock+lock" (on different CPU's) be an actual barrier as far as a third CPU was concerned, because you could still have the "unlock happened after contention was going on, so the final unlock only released the MCS waiter, and there was no barrier". See what I'm saying? We could guarantee that if somebody does write A; spin_lock() mb__after_spinlock(); read B then the "write A" -> "read B" would be ordered. That's one thing. But your - CPU 1: write A spin_unlock() - CPU 2 spin_lock() mb__after_spinlock(); read B ordering as far as a *third* CPU is concerned is a whole different thing again, and wouldn't be at all the same thing. Is it really that cross-CPU ordering you care about? Linus -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx"> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>