Re: Function to do end-writeback in bulk

[Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>]

On Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 04:09:20PM +0100, David Howells wrote:
> Can you take a look at the function below?  This is what I've come up with for
> the moment for a basic bulk end-writeback (and I'll need something similar for
> bulk unlock).  At the moment, it returns true/false depending on whether it
> made progress, but I'm thinking that it might be better if it returns the
> remaining size of any folio that partially overlaps the end position and so
> didn't get unlocked.  This would could allow me to set a minimum amount to
> accrue before I call it again.  Whether progress was made can also be
> determined by comparing @from before and after.
> 
> Thanks,
> David
> ---
> /**
>  * folio_end_writeback_range - End writeback for the folios within the range
>  * @mapping: The pagecache to modify
>  * @from: Pointer to the starting position (updated)
>  * @to: The end position (exclusive)
>  * @cleaner_func: Function to clean up the folios in the range
>  * @cleaner_priv: Private data for the cleaner func

I hate this API.  I much prefer the _iter() style:

struct end_writeback_ctrl {
	struct xa_state xas;
	uoff_t fend;
};

struct folio *end_writeback_iter(struct address_space *mapping,
		uoff_t from, uoff_t to,
		struct end_writeback_ctrl *ctrl, struct folio *folio)
{
	if (!folio) {
		ctrl->xas = __XA_STATE(&mapping->i_pages, from / PAGE_SIZE,
				0, 0);
		folio = xas_find(&ctrl->xas, to / PAGE_SIZE);
	} else {
retry:
		folio_end_writeback(folio);
		folio = xas_next_entry(&ctrl->xas, to / PAGE_SIZE);
	}

	if (xas_retry(&xas, folio))
		goto retry;
	ctrl->fend = folio_next_pos(folio);
	if (ctrl->fend > to)
		folio = NULL;

	return folio;
}

(you can embed the rcu_read_lock() / unlock in here too, but probably
better to do it in the caller)

>  * Unlock folios that are entirely within in the given range, where @from is
>  * included in the range, but @to is excluded from the range.
>  *
>  * Return: True if at least one folio got cleaned, false otherwise.  @from will
>  * be updated to point past the last folio cleaned.
>  */
> static inline
> bool folio_end_writeback_range(struct address_space *mapping,
> 			       uoff_t *from, uoff_t to,
> 			       void (*cleaner_func)(struct folio *folio,
> 						    void *cleaner_priv),
> 			       void *cleaner_priv)
> {
> 	struct folio *folio;
> 	XA_STATE(xas, &mapping->i_pages, *from / PAGE_SIZE);
> 	bool cleaned = false;
> 
> 	rcu_read_lock();
> 	xas_for_each(&xas, folio, (to - 1) / PAGE_SIZE) {
> 		uoff_t fend;
> 
> 		if (xas_retry(&xas, folio))
> 			continue;
> 
> 		fend = folio_next_pos(folio);
> 		if (fend > to)
> 			break;
> 
> 		cleaner_func(folio, cleaner_priv);
> 		folio_end_writeback(folio);
> 		*from = fend;
> 		cleaned = true;
> 	}
> 	rcu_read_unlock();
> 	return cleaned;
> }
>