smp: Make control dependencies work on Alpha, improve documentation

The current formulation of control dependencies fails on DEC Alpha,
which does not respect dependencies of any kind unless an explicit
memory barrier is provided.  This means that the current fomulation of
control dependencies fails on Alpha.  This commit therefore creates a
READ_ONCE_CTRL() that has the same overhead on non-Alpha systems, but
causes Alpha to produce the needed ordering.  This commit also applies
READ_ONCE_CTRL() to the one known use of control dependencies.

Use of READ_ONCE_CTRL() also has the beneficial effect of adding a bit
of self-documentation to control dependencies.

Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>

1 files changed, 16 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/compiler.h b/include/linux/compiler.h
index 8677225..5d66777 100644
--- a/include/linux/compiler.h
+++ b/include/linux/compiler.h
@@ -252,6 +252,22 @@ static __always_inline void __write_once_size(volatile void *p, void *res, int s
 #define WRITE_ONCE(x, val) \
 	({ typeof(x) __val = (val); __write_once_size(&(x), &__val, sizeof(__val)); __val; })
 
+/**
+ * READ_ONCE_CTRL - Read a value heading a control dependency
+ * @x: The value to be read, heading the control dependency
+ *
+ * Control dependencies are tricky.  See Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
+ * for important information on how to use them.  Note that in many cases,
+ * use of smp_load_acquire() will be much simpler.  Control dependencies
+ * should be avoided except on the hottest of hotpaths.
+ */
+#define READ_ONCE_CTRL(x) \
+({ \
+	typeof(x) __val = READ_ONCE(x); \
+	smp_read_barrier_depends(); /* Enforce control dependency. */ \
+	__val; \
+})
+
 #endif /* __KERNEL__ */
 
 #endif /* __ASSEMBLY__ */