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* [PATCH] Improve data-dependency memory barrier example in documentation
@ 2006-04-05  9:22 David Howells
  0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: David Howells @ 2006-04-05  9:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: torvalds, akpm; +Cc: linux-kernel, linux-arch


In the memory barrier document, improve the example of the data dependency
barrier situation by:

 (1) showing the initial values of the variables involved; and

 (2) repeating the instruction sequence description, this time with the data
     dependency barrier actually shown to make it clear what the revised
     sequence actually is.

Signed-Off-By: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
---
warthog>diffstat -p1 /tmp/mb.diff 
 Documentation/memory-barriers.txt |   16 +++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
index f855031..822fc45 100644
--- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
+++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
@@ -610,6 +610,7 @@ loads.  Consider the following sequence 
 
 	CPU 1			CPU 2
 	=======================	=======================
+		{ B = 7; X = 9; Y = 8; C = &Y }
 	STORE A = 1
 	STORE B = 2
 	<write barrier>
@@ -651,7 +652,20 @@ In the above example, CPU 2 perceives th
 (which would be B) coming after the the LOAD of C.
 
 If, however, a data dependency barrier were to be placed between the load of C
-and the load of *C (ie: B) on CPU 2, then the following will occur:
+and the load of *C (ie: B) on CPU 2:
+
+	CPU 1			CPU 2
+	=======================	=======================
+		{ B = 7; X = 9; Y = 8; C = &Y }
+	STORE A = 1
+	STORE B = 2
+	<write barrier>
+	STORE C = &B		LOAD X
+	STORE D = 4		LOAD C (gets &B)
+				<data dependency barrier>
+				LOAD *C (reads B)
+
+then the following will occur:
 
 	+-------+       :      :                :       :
 	|       |       +------+                +-------+

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2006-04-05  9:22 [PATCH] Improve data-dependency memory barrier example in documentation David Howells

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