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Date:      Mon, 31 Dec 2001 23:55:10 +1100 (EST)
From:      Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
To:        Alfred Perlstein <bright@mu.org>
Cc:        Michal Mertl <mime@traveller.cz>, Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>, <arch@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: 64 bit counters
Message-ID:  <20011231234620.O6481-100000@gamplex.bde.org>
In-Reply-To: <20011229185917.J16101@elvis.mu.org>

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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).

Bruce


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