From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from psmtp.com (na3sys010amx145.postini.com [74.125.245.145]) by kanga.kvack.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 42CF76B002C for ; Tue, 6 Mar 2012 07:45:54 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <1331037942.11248.307.camel@twins> Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] checkpatch: Warn on use of yield() From: Peter Zijlstra Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2012 13:45:42 +0100 In-Reply-To: <1330999280.10358.3.camel@joe2Laptop> References: <20120302112358.GA3481@suse.de> <1330723262.11248.233.camel@twins> <20120305121804.3b4daed4.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <1330999280.10358.3.camel@joe2Laptop> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: To: Joe Perches Cc: Andrew Morton , Mel Gorman , Miao Xie , Christoph Lameter , linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Theodore Ts'o On Mon, 2012-03-05 at 18:01 -0800, Joe Perches wrote: > +# check for use of yield() > + if ($line =3D~ /\byield\s*\(\s*\)/ { > + WARN("YIELD", > + "yield() is deprecated, consider cpu_relax()\n" . $herecurr); > + } Its not deprecated as such, its just a very dangerous and ill considered API. cpu_relax() is not a good substitute suggestion in that its still a busy wait and prone to much of the same problems. The case at hand was a life-lock due to expecting that yield() would run another process which it needed in order to complete. Yield() does not provide that guarantee. Looking at fs/ext4/mballoc.c, we have this gem: /* * Yield the CPU here so that we don't get soft lockup * in non preempt case. */ yield(); This is of course complete crap as well.. I suspect they want cond_resched() there. And: /* let others to free the space */ yield(); Like said, yield() doesn't guarantee anything like running anybody else, does it rely on that? Or is it optimistic? Another fun user: void tasklet_kill(struct tasklet_struct *t) { if (in_interrupt()) printk("Attempt to kill tasklet from interrupt\n"); while (test_and_set_bit(TASKLET_STATE_SCHED, &t->state)) { do { yield(); } while (test_bit(TASKLET_STATE_SCHED, &t->state)); } tasklet_unlock_wait(t); clear_bit(TASKLET_STATE_SCHED, &t->state); } The only reason that doesn't explode is because running tasklets is non-preemptible, However since they're non-preemptible they shouldn't run long and you might as well busy spin. If they can run long, yield() isn't your biggest problem. mm/memory_hotplug.c has two yield() calls in offline_pages() and I've no idea what they're trying to achieve. But really, yield() is basically _always_ the wrong thing. The right thing can be: cond_resched(); wait_event(); or something entirely different. So instead of suggesting an alternative, I would suggest thinking about the actual problem in order to avoid the non-thinking solutions the checkpatch brigade is so overly fond of :/ Maybe something like: "yield() is dangerous and wrong, rework your code to not use it." That at least requires some sort of thinking and doesn't suggest blind substitution. -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: email@kvack.org