Re: [PATCH 1/8] scsi: Drop struct Scsi_Host->host_lock around SHT->queuecommand()

["Nicholas A. Bellinger" <nab@linux-iscsi.org>]

On Fri, 2010-09-17 at 10:49 -0700, Tim Chen wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-09-17 at 09:41 -0700, Nicholas A. Bellinger wrote:
> 
> > > > 
> > > > What I was actually thinking of for the atomic is that we'd let it range
> > > > [1..INT_MAX] so a zero was an indicator of no use of this.  Then the
> > > > actual code could become
> > > > 
> > > > if (atomic_read(x)) {
> > > > 	do {
> > > > 		y = atomic_add_return(1, x);
> > > > 	} while (y == 0);
> > > > }
> > > 
> > > The conversion of struct scsi_cmnd->serial_number to atomic_t and the
> > > above code for scsi_cmd_get_serial() sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
> > > 
> > 
> > Actually, that should be the conversion of struct
> > Scsi_Host->cmd_serial_number to an atomic_t.   AFAICT there is no reason
> > for struct scsi_cmnd->serial_number needing to be an atomic_t.
> 
> Just want to verify the hidden assumption we have here when the atomic
> int Scsi_Host->cmd_serial_number counter overflow after increment. The
> counter itself then becomes negative.  We are assuming that when we do
> type conversion back to unsigned long scsi_cmnd->serial_number, we will
> get the right thing.  
> 
> So for 32-bit int, we expect if we start with 0x7fffffff in hex and the
> expected sequence will be
> 
> 	2147483647 (int) -> 2147483647 (unsigned long)  [0x7fffffff]
> 	+1
> 	-2147483648 (int) -> 2147483648 (unsigned long) [0x80000000]
> 	+1
> 	-2147483647 (int) -> 2147483649 (unsigned long) [0x80000001]
> 	
> If there is architecture where the above assumption is not true (which
> I'm not aware of but just checking), then we should manually wrap the
> atomic counter to 1 when counter overflow.  
> 

I was thinking about this as well, but I figured since jejb recommended
it's usage for scsi_cmd_get_serial() that it would not be a problem.
However I am not sure if he had keeping the struct
scsi_cmnd->serial_number a 'unsigned long' that is done in the new v2
patches.

James, is there any other consideration here wrt to atomic_t wrapping
for scsi_cmd_get_serial() using a astruct Scsi_Host->cmd_serial_number
assignment to an 'unsigned long' that I need to include in a v3
series..?

--nab