On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 9:15 PM, Robert P. J. Day <rpjday@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > from kernel/timer.c: > > /* > * The 64-bit jiffies value is not atomic - you MUST NOT read it > * without sampling the sequence number in xtime_lock. > * jiffies is defined in the linker script... > */ > > void do_timer(unsigned long ticks) > { > jiffies_64 += ticks; > update_wall_time(); > calc_global_load(); > } > > i'm not sure how to interpret that comment since it clearly suggests > that you can't simply access jiffies_64, but that's exactly what > do_timer() is doing in that first line by incrementing it by a certain > value. can anyone clarify whether the above makes any sense? with the help of cscope, you could see that its callers: tick_periodic and tick_do_update_jiffies64 defined in tick-common.c and tick-sched.c respectively, already grab the seqlock before calling the do_timer and release it after do_timer is done. /* * Periodic tick */ static void tick_periodic(int cpu) { if (tick_do_timer_cpu == cpu) { write_seqlock(&xtime_lock); // here.... /* Keep track of the next tick event */ tick_next_period = ktime_add(tick_next_period, tick_period); do_timer(1); write_sequnlock(&xtime_lock); // and here.... } update_process_times(user_mode(get_irq_regs())); profile_tick(CPU_PROFILING); } -- regards, Mulyadi Santosa Freelance Linux trainer and consultant blog: the-hydra.blogspot.com training: mulyaditraining.blogspot.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ