Re: [PATCH RFC LKMM 7/7] tools/memory-model: Dynamically check SRCU lock-to-unlock matching

Alan Stern
2019-01-11T21:57:17Z

On Fri, 11 Jan 2019, Paul E. McKenney wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 11, 2019 at 12:20:45AM +0100, Andrea Parri wrote:
> > > > I'm not all that exited about spreading version requirements in the
> > > > source: we report this requirement in our README, and apparently we
> > > > already struggle to keep this information up-to-date. So what about
> > > > squashing something like the below (assume that 7.52 will be released
> > > > by the time this patch hit mainline; if this won't be the case, we
> > > > may consider using the development version 7.51+6)? notice that this
> > > > also removes an (obsolete, at this point) comment from lock.cat.
> > >
> > > Sounds like a very good point to me!
> > >
> > > Should have pointers in the various files to the README file? Or maybe
> > > get people used to using scripting that checks versions? Or maybe
> > > after answering questions for some time, people will get used to
> > > checking versions?
> >
> > As discussed off-list: I have no strong opinion on this regard, well,
> > except that I think we ought to fix the README, somehow (consider my
> > diff below as a first proposal). Akira actually preceded me on this
> > and suggested another solution [1].
> >
> > Andrea
> >
> > [1] http://lkml.kernel.org/r/04d15c18-d210-e3da-01e2-483eff135cb7@gmail.com
>
> My concern with this approach is that it seems to me to implicitly promise
> that herd will provide backwards compatibility, which is a real pain to
> test, let alone to provide. Yes, the latest version of herd probably
> supports latest mainline, but will five-years-from-now herd work correctly
> on the .bell, .cat, and .def files from current mainline?

The README file can say something along the lines of:

Herd version 7.52 (later versions may or may not be
compatible). Herd can be downloaded from...

Alan