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From: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
To: Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@gmail.com>,
	David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>,
	Li RongQing <lirongqing@baidu.com>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
	Waiman Long <longman@redhat.com>, Will Deacon <will@kernel.org>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH 1/1] documentation: seqlock: fix the wrong documentation of read_seqbegin_or_lock/need_seqretry
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2025 18:20:29 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20250928162029.GA3121@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20250928161953.GA3112@redhat.com>

The comments and pseudo code in Documentation/locking/seqlock.rst are wrong:

	int seq = 0;
	do {
		read_seqbegin_or_lock(&foo_seqlock, &seq);

		/* ... [[read-side critical section]] ... */

	} while (need_seqretry(&foo_seqlock, seq));

read_seqbegin_or_lock() always returns with an even "seq" and need_seqretry()
doesn't change this counter. This means that seq is always even and thus the
locking pass is simply impossible.

IOW, "_or_lock" has no effect and this code doesn't differ from

	do {
		seq = read_seqbegin(&foo_seqlock);

		/* ... [[read-side critical section]] ... */

	} while (read_seqretry(&foo_seqlock, seq));

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@redhat.com>
---
 Documentation/locking/seqlock.rst | 9 +++++----
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/locking/seqlock.rst b/Documentation/locking/seqlock.rst
index ec6411d02ac8..167d442d3c7f 100644
--- a/Documentation/locking/seqlock.rst
+++ b/Documentation/locking/seqlock.rst
@@ -218,13 +218,14 @@ Read path, three categories:
    according to a passed marker. This is used to avoid lockless readers
    starvation (too much retry loops) in case of a sharp spike in write
    activity. First, a lockless read is tried (even marker passed). If
-   that trial fails (odd sequence counter is returned, which is used as
-   the next iteration marker), the lockless read is transformed to a
-   full locking read and no retry loop is necessary::
+   that trial fails (sequence counter doesn't match), make the marker
+   odd for the next iteration, the lockless read is transformed to a
+   full locking read and no retry loop is necessary, for example::
 
 	/* marker; even initialization */
-	int seq = 0;
+	int seq = 1;
 	do {
+		seq++; /* 2 on the 1st/lockless path, otherwise odd */
 		read_seqbegin_or_lock(&foo_seqlock, &seq);
 
 		/* ... [[read-side critical section]] ... */
-- 
2.25.1.362.g51ebf55



  reply	other threads:[~2025-09-28 16:22 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 74+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2025-09-28 16:19 [PATCH 0/1] documentation: seqlock: fix the wrong documentation of read_seqbegin_or_lock/need_seqretry Oleg Nesterov
2025-09-28 16:20 ` Oleg Nesterov [this message]
2025-10-01 18:21   ` [PATCH 1/1] " Waiman Long
2025-10-01 19:06     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-01 19:24       ` Waiman Long
2025-10-01 19:34         ` Waiman Long
2025-10-02 11:01     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-21 10:35   ` [tip: locking/core] " tip-bot2 for Oleg Nesterov
2025-09-28 16:20 ` [RFC 2/1] seqlock: make the read_seqbegin_or_lock() API more simple and less error-prone ? Oleg Nesterov
2025-09-29  0:41   ` [????] " Li,Rongqing
2025-09-29  6:47     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-09-30 22:09   ` David Howells
2025-10-01 11:51     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-01 13:02   ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-01 13:13     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-01 13:46       ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-02 12:58       ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 14:47 ` [PATCH 0/5] seqlock: introduce SEQLOCK_READ_SECTION() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 14:49 ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 14:50   ` [PATCH 1/5] " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 15:34     ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-05 16:07       ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 16:35         ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-05 14:50   ` [PATCH 2/5] seqlock: change thread_group_cputime() to use SEQLOCK_READ_SECTION() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 14:50   ` [PATCH 3/5] seqlock: change do_task_stat() " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 14:50   ` [PATCH 4/5] seqlock: change do_io_accounting() " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 14:50   ` [PATCH 5/5] seqlock: change __dentry_path() to use __SEQLOCK_READ_SECTION() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-05 15:48     ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-05 15:30   ` [PATCH 0/5] seqlock: introduce SEQLOCK_READ_SECTION() Al Viro
2025-10-05 17:40     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-07 14:20 ` [PATCH 0/4] seqlock: introduce scoped_seqlock_read() and scoped_seqlock_read_irqsave() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-07 14:21   ` [PATCH 1/4] " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-07 16:35     ` Waiman Long
2025-10-07 17:18       ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-07 17:21         ` Waiman Long
2025-10-07 14:21   ` [PATCH 2/4] seqlock: change thread_group_cputime() to use scoped_seqlock_read_irqsave() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-07 14:21   ` [PATCH 3/4] seqlock: change do_task_stat() " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-07 14:21   ` [PATCH 4/4] seqlock: change do_io_accounting() " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-07 15:38   ` [PATCH 0/4] seqlock: introduce scoped_seqlock_read() and scoped_seqlock_read_irqsave() Linus Torvalds
2025-10-07 16:34     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 12:30 ` [PATCH v2 " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 12:30   ` [PATCH v2 1/4] " Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 12:55     ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-08 12:59       ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 13:54         ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-08 16:05     ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-08 16:55       ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-09  5:31       ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-09  7:04         ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-09 14:37           ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-09 16:18             ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-09 19:50             ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-09 20:11               ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-09 20:24                 ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-09 22:12                   ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-09 22:55                     ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-10  8:03                       ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-10 12:32                         ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-10 13:14                           ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-13  9:03                             ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-13 11:50                               ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-10 15:30                           ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-09 23:20                     ` Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-09 23:26                       ` Linus Torvalds
2025-10-21 10:35                 ` [tip: locking/core] seqlock: Introduce scoped_seqlock_read() tip-bot2 for Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-08 12:30   ` [PATCH v2 2/4] seqlock: change thread_group_cputime() to use scoped_seqlock_read_irqsave() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-21 10:35     ` [tip: locking/core] seqlock: Change thread_group_cputime() to use scoped_seqlock_read() tip-bot2 for Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 12:30   ` [PATCH v2 3/4] seqlock: change do_task_stat() to use scoped_seqlock_read_irqsave() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-21 10:35     ` [tip: locking/core] seqlock: Change do_task_stat() to use scoped_seqlock_read() tip-bot2 for Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 12:31   ` [PATCH v2 4/4] seqlock: change do_io_accounting() to use scoped_seqlock_read_irqsave() Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-21 10:35     ` [tip: locking/core] seqlock: Change do_io_accounting() to use scoped_seqlock_read() tip-bot2 for Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 12:56   ` [PATCH v2 0/4] seqlock: introduce scoped_seqlock_read() and scoped_seqlock_read_irqsave() Peter Zijlstra
2025-10-08 13:13     ` Oleg Nesterov
2025-10-08 13:55       ` Peter Zijlstra

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