Re: [PATCH 1/8] badpage: simplify page_alloc flag check+clear

Hugh Dickins
2008-12-02T10:39:26Z

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> On Mon, 1 Dec 2008, Hugh Dickins wrote:
> > > > PAGE_FLAGS_CHECK_AT_FREE
>
> > > Rename this to PAGE_FLAGS_CLEAR_WHEN_FREE?
> >
> > No, that's a list of just the ones it's checking at free;
> > it then (with this patch) goes on to clear all of them.
>
> But they are always clear on free. The checking is irrelevant.

How about CHECK_PAGE_FLAGS_CLEAR_AT_FREE?

>
> > One of the problems with PREP is that it's not obvious that it
> > means ALLOC: yes, I'd be happier with PAGE_FLAGS_CLEAR_AT_FREE.
>
> Ok.

If you like the suggestion above, then for this one
how about CHECK_PAGE_FLAGS_CLEAR_AT_ALLOC?

I just haven't changed those names in the patch, continued to
use the names from before: they're probably not the names I'd
have chosen, but it is hard to write a paragraph in a name.

The one I really disliked was "PAGE_FLAGS" for an obscure
subset of page flags, and have got rid of that.

> > > This is equal to
> > >
> > > page->flags &=~PAGE_FLAGS_CHECK_AT_PREP;
> > >
> > > You can drop the if...
> >
> > I was intentionally following the existing style of
> > if (PageDirty(page))
> > __ClearPageDirty(page);
> > if (PageSwapBacked(page))
> > __ClearPageSwapBacked(page);
> > which is going out of its way to avoid dirtying a cacheline.
> >
> > In all the obvious cases, I think the cacheline will already
> > be dirty; but I guess there's an important case (high order
> > but not compound?) which has a lot of clean cachelines.
>
> Free or alloc dirties the cacheline of the page struct regardless since
> the LRU field is always modified.
>
> Well, ok. The not compound high order case may be an exception.
>
> But then lets at least make a single check
>
> If (page->flags & (all the flags including dirty and SwapBacked))
> zap-em.

That's exactly what I did, isn't it?

Hugh