On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 09:15:06PM +0100, David Howells wrote: > Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > if (rcu_dereference_check(nfsi->delegation, > > > > lockdep_is_held(&clp->cl_lock)) != NULL) { > > > > > > If clp->cl_lock protects this pointer, why the need for > > > rcu_dereference_check() at all? The check is redundant since the line > > > above gets the very lock we're checking for. > > > > Because Arnd Bergmann is working on a set of patches that makes sparse > > complain if you access an RCU-protected pointer directly, without using > > some flavor of rcu_dereference(). > > > > So your approach would work for the moment, but would need another > > change, probably in the 2.6.35 timeframe. > > My objection to using rcu_dereference_check() here is that it's a dynamic > check: the compiler emits code to do it, since the lock/unlock status of what > the pointer points to cannot be determined easily at compiler time - and then > the barrier is interpolated anyway unnecessarily. But for !CONFIG_PROVE_RCU, rcu_dereference_check() is compiled out: #define rcu_dereference_check(p, c) rcu_dereference_raw(p) And rcu_dereference_raw() is the same as the old rcu_dereference(). So this should not be a problem, given that CONFIG_PROVE_RCU should not be used for production systems. Thanx, Paul -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-nfs" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html