From: Rich Felker <dalias-8zAoT0mYgF4@public.gmane.org>
To: Michael Kerrisk
<mtk.manpages-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>,
"linux-man-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org"
<linux-man-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org>
Subject: Erroneous text about EINTR in futex man page
Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2014 14:08:46 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20141204190846.GA25606@brightrain.aerifal.cx> (raw)
The following text in the futex(2) man page seems incorrect:
EINTR A FUTEX_WAIT operation was interrupted by a signal (see
signal(7)) or a spurious wakeup.
I see no code in the kernel whereby a "spurious wakeup", or anything
other than interruption by a signal handler that's not SA_RESTART, can
cause futex to fail with EINTR. In general, overloading of EINTR
and/or spurious EINTRs from a syscall make it impossible to use that
syscall for implementing any function where EINTR is a mandatory
failure on interruption-by-signal, since there is no way for userspace
to distinguish whether the EINTR occurred as a result of an
interrupting signal or some other reason. The kernel folks have gone
to great lengths to fix spurious EINTRs (see signal(7) for history),
especially by non-interrupting signal handlers, including in futex,
and allowing EINTR here would be contrary to that goal.
It's my belief that the "or a spurious wakeup" text should simply be
removed.
The reason I'm raising this topic is its relevance to a thread on
libc-alpha:
[RFC] mutex destruction (#13690): problem description and workarounds
Rich
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in
the body of a message to majordomo-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
next reply other threads:[~2014-12-04 19:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2014-12-04 19:08 Rich Felker [this message]
[not found] ` <20141204190846.GA25606-C3MtFaGISjmo6RMmaWD+6Sb1p8zYI1N1@public.gmane.org>
2015-01-15 9:00 ` Erroneous text about EINTR in futex man page Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=20141204190846.GA25606@brightrain.aerifal.cx \
--to=dalias-8zaot0mygf4@public.gmane.org \
--cc=linux-man-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org \
--cc=mtk.manpages-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).