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Date:      Mon, 31 Dec 2001 12:39:13 -0800 (PST)
From:      John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Michal Mertl <mime@traveller.cz>
Cc:        arch@FreeBSD.ORG, Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>, Alfred Perlstein <bright@mu.org>, Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Subject:   Re: 64 bit counters
Message-ID:  <XFMail.011231123913.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.41.0112311436520.16032-100000@prg.traveller.cz>

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On 31-Dec-01 Michal Mertl wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, Bruce Evans wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, 29 Dec 2001, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
>>
>> > * Michal Mertl <mime@traveller.cz> [011229 18:49] wrote:
>> > > I doesn't seem too bad to me, but I do have a problem - I can't
>> > > implement
>> > > real atomic 64 bit operations on an i386. It shouldn't be named
>> > > atomic_XXX
>> > > if it isn't atomic. So that other people don't start to use it on <586
>> > > with some variable which changes fast.
>> > >
>> > > What about making the counters not 64 bit, but the size of biggest
>> > > atomic
>> > > type? Something like type u_maxatomic_t which would be 32 bit on <586
>> > > and
>> > > 64 bit otherwise. There would still be problem in determining at compile
>> > > time the size but we could choose the safe size if not somewhere defined
>> > > otherwise.
>> > >
>> > > I can make changes to my local tree but how should I send them someone
>> > > for
>> > > review? Should I send them to arch? I tried to find the answer to this
>> > > question in developers's handbook but didn't find it.
>> >
>> > *laff* the concept of atomic_t was initially proposed by me over
>> > a year ago (i got the idea from linux) however it never seemed to
>> > get done.
>>
>> atomic_t would be "int" if anything.  I removed support for atomic
>> operations on all types except "int" (and some pointers punned to int
>> on i386's), and found that (on i386's) only 2 source files didn't
>> compile.  Both are easy to fix (one MD place used a char type for a
>> set of flags that is followed by padding to a 32-bit boundary anyway,
>> and one MI place uses long types which are equivalent to ints on i386's
>> anyway).
>>
> 
> I've almost finished the changes to implement interface counters with
> atomic_t which is either 32 bit or 64 bit. I'll finish it anyway. It can
> at least be converted to atomic_add_int (instead of my WIP name
> atomic_add_max and friends) and it will help someone later to be able to
> get rid of giant protection. I may be wrong even with this - well if
> that's going to be the case and otherwise there will be no use for my
> changes, they can always be forgotten. I could take it as practice lesson
> on hacking kernel sources :-).

I really need to fix the atomic(9) API to use sizeof() instead of explicit
types like Bruce wants. :)

-- 

John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org>  <><  http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/
"Power Users Use the Power to Serve!"  -  http://www.FreeBSD.org/

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