Re: [PATCH] mm: introduce for_each_vma helpers

Hugh Dickins
2014-08-16T01:30:05Z

On Wed, 13 Aug 2014, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 2014 16:46:48 -0700 Davidlohr Bueso <davidlohr@hp.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2014-08-13 at 00:52 +0300, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 10:45:23AM -0700, Davidlohr Bueso wrote:
> > > > The most common way of iterating through the list of vmas, is via:
> > > > for (vma = mm->mmap; vma; vma = vma->vm_next)
> > > >
> > > > This patch replaces this logic with a new for_each_vma(vma) helper,
> > > > which 1) encapsulates this logic, and 2) make it easier to read.
> > >
> > > Why does it need to be encapsulated?
> > > Do you have problem with reading plain for()?
> > >
> > > Your for_each_vma(vma) assumes "mm" from the scope. This can be confusing
> > > for reader: whether it uses "mm" from the scope or "current->mm". This
> > > will lead to very hard to find bug one day.
> >
> > I think its fairly obvious to see where the mm is coming from -- the
> > helpers *do not* necessarily use current, it uses whatever mm was
> > already there in the first place. I have not changed anything related to
> > this from the callers.
>
> It is a bit of a hand-grenade for those (rare) situations where code is
> dealing with other-tasks-mm. It's simple enough to add an `mm' arg?
>
> > The only related change I can think of, is for some callers that do:
> >
> > for (vma = current->mm->mmap; vma != NULL; vma = vma->vm_next)
> >
> > So we just add a local mm from current->mm and replace the for() with
> > for_each_vma(). I don't see anything particularly ambiguous with that.
>
> Adding a local to support a macro which secretly uses that local is
> pretty nasty.
>
>
> Overall, I'm not really sure that
>
> - for (vma = mm->mmap; vma; vma = vma->vm_next) {
> + for_each_vma(mm, vma) {
>
> is much of an improvement. I'll wait to see what others think...

... I'm with Kirill: obscuring a simple for loop is unhelpful -
unless it's a prelude to a grand enhancement under the hood?

As to the hidden mm argument: a momentary lapse of taste, I hope.

Hugh