On Saturday 03 August 2002 09:42 am, Jan Hudec wrote: > On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 11:15:32AM -0700, Seth Arnold wrote: > > On Thu, Aug 01, 2002 at 01:39:55PM -0400, anton wilson wrote: > > > driver_read(){ > > > spin_lockirq_save(&(data->spinlock), flags) > > > /* use data*/ > > > spinlock_irq_restore(&(data->spinlock), flags); > > > } > > > > > > driver_disconnect() > > > { > > > if(data) > > > { > > > kfree(data); > > > } > > > } > > > I see a problem here if for instance disconnect freed the data while > > > read was using it. Am I right? > > > > There is probably going to be a problem to use the lock when freeing the > > datastructure. If you move the lock somewhere else (say a hashtable of > > locks) you could then use the lock to protect the kfree(data);. > what if i have to do something like this: driver_read(struct file *file) { data = (struct mydata *) file->private_data; if(data){ spin_lockirq_save(&locktable[data->number], flags) /* .... */ } } This is still bad because I have to access the data to find out which lock to use. Secondly, I don't have any guarantees that data is not null between the time I check and the time I access. The only think I can see is to have another global lock. . . Not sure what else I can do. Anton -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/