Re: [RFC] Add support for semaphore-like structure with support for asynchronous I/O

[Suparna Bhattacharya <suparna@in.ibm.com>]

On Tue, Apr 05, 2005 at 11:46:41AM -0400, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 01:56:35PM -0400, Trond Myklebust wrote:
> > IOW: the current semaphore implementations really all need to die, and
> > be replaced by a single generic version to which it is actually
> > practical to add new functionality.
> 
> I can see that goal, but I don't think introducing iosems is the right 
> way to acheive it.  Instead (and I'll start tackling this), how about 
> factoring out the existing semaphore implementations to use a common 
> lib/semaphore.c, much like lib/rwsem.c?  The iosems can be used as a 
> basis for the implementation, but we can avoid having to do a giant 
> s/semaphore/iosem/g over the kernel tree.

That would be really neat, if you can get to it.

Regards
Suparna

> 
> > Failing that, it is _much_ easier to convert the generic code that needs
> > to support aio to use a new locking implementation and then test that.
> > It is not as if conversion to aio won't involve changes to the code in
> > the area surrounding those locks anyway.
> 
> Quite true.  There's a lot more work to do in this area, and these common 
> primatives are needed to make progress.  Someone at netapp sent me an 
> email yesterday asking about aio support in NFS, so there is some demand 
> out there.  Cheers,
> 
> 		-ben
> -- 
> "Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once." -- John Wheeler
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-- 
Suparna Bhattacharya (suparna@in.ibm.com)
Linux Technology Center
IBM Software Lab, India