diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | include/linux/llist.h | 37 |
1 files changed, 21 insertions, 16 deletions
diff --git a/include/linux/llist.h b/include/linux/llist.h index fd4ca0b4fe0f..171baa90f6f6 100644 --- a/include/linux/llist.h +++ b/include/linux/llist.h @@ -3,28 +3,33 @@ /* * Lock-less NULL terminated single linked list * - * If there are multiple producers and multiple consumers, llist_add - * can be used in producers and llist_del_all can be used in - * consumers. They can work simultaneously without lock. But - * llist_del_first can not be used here. Because llist_del_first - * depends on list->first->next does not changed if list->first is not - * changed during its operation, but llist_del_first, llist_add, - * llist_add (or llist_del_all, llist_add, llist_add) sequence in - * another consumer may violate that. - * - * If there are multiple producers and one consumer, llist_add can be - * used in producers and llist_del_all or llist_del_first can be used - * in the consumer. - * - * This can be summarized as follow: + * Cases where locking is not needed: + * If there are multiple producers and multiple consumers, llist_add can be + * used in producers and llist_del_all can be used in consumers simultaneously + * without locking. Also a single consumer can use llist_del_first while + * multiple producers simultaneously use llist_add, without any locking. + * + * Cases where locking is needed: + * If we have multiple consumers with llist_del_first used in one consumer, and + * llist_del_first or llist_del_all used in other consumers, then a lock is + * needed. This is because llist_del_first depends on list->first->next not + * changing, but without lock protection, there's no way to be sure about that + * if a preemption happens in the middle of the delete operation and on being + * preempted back, the list->first is the same as before causing the cmpxchg in + * llist_del_first to succeed. For example, while a llist_del_first operation + * is in progress in one consumer, then a llist_del_first, llist_add, + * llist_add (or llist_del_all, llist_add, llist_add) sequence in another + * consumer may cause violations. + * + * This can be summarized as follows: * * | add | del_first | del_all * add | - | - | - * del_first | | L | L * del_all | | | - * - * Where "-" stands for no lock is needed, while "L" stands for lock - * is needed. + * Where, a particular row's operation can happen concurrently with a column's + * operation, with "-" being no lock needed, while "L" being lock is needed. * * The list entries deleted via llist_del_all can be traversed with * traversing function such as llist_for_each etc. But the list |