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Date: Wed, 27 Jan 2016 10:03:53 -0800
From: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
To: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>, Paul Turner <pjt@google.com>,
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Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v2 1/3] getcpu_cache system call: cache CPU number of
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On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 05:36:48PM +0000, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> ----- On Jan 27, 2016, at 12:24 PM, Thomas Gleixner tglx@linutronix.de wrote:
> > On Wed, 27 Jan 2016, Josh Triplett wrote:
> >> With the dynamic allocation removed, this seems sensible to me.  One
> >> minor nit: s/int32_t/uint32_t/g, since a location intended to hold a CPU
> >> number should never need to hold a negative number.
> > 
> > You try to block the future of computing: https://lwn.net/Articles/638673/
> 
> Besides impossible architectures, there is actually a use-case for
> signedness here. It makes it possible to initialize the cpu number
> cache to a negative value, e.g. -1, in userspace. Then, a check for
> value < 0 can be used to figure out cases where the getcpu_cache
> system call is not implemented, and where a fallback (vdso or getcpu
> syscall) needs to be used.
> 
> This is why I have chosen a signed type for the cpu cache so far.

If getcpu_cache doesn't exist, you'll get ENOSYS.  If getcpu_cache
returns 0, then you can assume the kernel will give you a valid CPU
number.

- Josh Triplett