From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Luis Chamberlain Subject: [PATCH v2] mm: expand documentation over __read_mostly Date: Thu, 7 May 2020 16:14:24 +0000 Message-ID: <20200507161424.2584-1-mcgrof@kernel.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Return-path: Received: from mail-pg1-f193.google.com ([209.85.215.193]:40922 "EHLO mail-pg1-f193.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1726521AbgEGQO2 (ORCPT ); Thu, 7 May 2020 12:14:28 -0400 Sender: linux-arch-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: To: cl@linux.com, akpm@linux-foundation.org Cc: arnd@arndb.de, willy@infradead.org, aquini@redhat.com, keescook@chromium.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Luis Chamberlain __read_mostly can easily be misused by folks, its not meant for just read-only data. There are performance reasons for using it, but we also don't provide any guidance about its use. Provide a bit more guidance over its use. Acked-by: Christoph Lameter Signed-off-by: Luis Chamberlain --- This v2 just has a few spelling fixes. include/linux/cache.h | 10 ++++++++-- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/include/linux/cache.h b/include/linux/cache.h index 750621e41d1c..8106fb304fa7 100644 --- a/include/linux/cache.h +++ b/include/linux/cache.h @@ -15,8 +15,14 @@ /* * __read_mostly is used to keep rarely changing variables out of frequently - * updated cachelines. If an architecture doesn't support it, ignore the - * hint. + * updated cachelines. Its use should be reserved for data that is used + * frequently in hot paths. Performance traces can help decide when to use + * this. You want __read_mostly data to be tightly packed, so that in the + * best case multiple frequently read variables for a hot path will be next + * to each other in order to reduce the number of cachelines needed to + * execute a critical path. We should be mindful and selective of its use. + * ie: if you're going to use it please supply a *good* justification in your + * commit log */ #ifndef __read_mostly #define __read_mostly -- 2.25.1