Re: [RFC][PATCH 2/2] kernel: extract thread types from task_struct::flags

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:13:36 +0200
Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@chello.nl> wrote:

> Free up a few more PF_flags by moving thread types out to their own variable.
> 
> Initially I compressed the types into less bits inside task_struct::flags, but
> Thomas suggested I move them to their own field.
> 

There doesn't seem to be a huge point to all this, but I guess there's
some sense in separating "what type of thread this is" from "attributes
of this thread".  Maybe.  At the expense of a larger task_struct.

> +/*
> + * Types >= tt_kernel imply the old PF_KTHREAD
> + */

Perhaps that should be encapsulated into another helper function

> --- linux-2.6.orig/kernel/fork.c
> +++ linux-2.6/kernel/fork.c
> @@ -570,7 +570,7 @@ struct mm_struct *get_task_mm(struct tas
>  	task_lock(task);
>  	mm = task->mm;
>  	if (mm) {
> -		if (task->flags & PF_KTHREAD)
> +		if (task_type(task) >= tt_kernel)

rather than open-coded everywhere.