From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267517AbUHDXiZ (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Aug 2004 19:38:25 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267515AbUHDXiH (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Aug 2004 19:38:07 -0400 Received: from bi01p1.co.us.ibm.com ([32.97.110.142]:21109 "EHLO linux.local") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S267516AbUHDXhQ (ORCPT ); Wed, 4 Aug 2004 19:37:16 -0400 Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 16:33:57 -0700 From: "Paul E. McKenney" To: Nigel Cunningham Cc: dipankar@in.ibm.com, shemminger@osdl.org, Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH] Updated RCU documentation improvement Message-ID: <20040804233357.GE1239@us.ibm.com> Reply-To: paulmck@us.ibm.com References: <20040804141608.GA1865@us.ibm.com> <1091657826.2964.3.camel@laptop.cunninghams> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1091657826.2964.3.camel@laptop.cunninghams> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Aug 05, 2004 at 08:17:07AM +1000, Nigel Cunningham wrote: > Hi. > > What does RCU stand for? I haven't looked very hard, but all I've seen > is RCU, and not an expansion of the abbreviation. > > Regards, Hello, Nigel, RCU stands for "read-copy update". The rationale behind the name is that readers proceed concurrently with updaters, and updaters must make copies in order for complex updates to appear atomic to readers. That said, most uses of RCU simply add and delete items. Very few uses do in-place RCU-protected updates. Thanx, Paul