Re: [RFC PATCH 3/3] locking/mutex: Optimize mutex trylock slowpath

Jason Low
2014-06-04T21:47:16Z

On Wed, 2014-06-04 at 13:28 -0700, Davidlohr Bueso wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-06-04 at 12:08 -0700, Jason Low wrote:
> > In __mutex_trylock_slowpath(), we acquire the wait_lock spinlock,
> > xchg() lock->count with -1, then set lock->count back to 0 if there
> > are no waiters, and return true if the prev lock count was 1.
> >
> > However, if we the mutex is already locked, then there may not be
> ^^ leave that out.
>
> > much point in attempting the above operations.
>
> Isn't this redundant? I mean, if we enter the slowpath its because
> __mutex_fastpath_trylock() already failed so we already know that the
> lock is taken.

This function is really just used as an alternative method of trylock
for !__HAVE_ARCH_CMPXCHG. In that case, the fastpath can call directly
into the slowpath function, without checking for if the lock is taken.

> What kind of testing has this change been put through? Any advantages?
> (ie: how many cycles are we saving here?), the trylock mechanism is
> already pretty darn fast.

While I did run tests with this patch, this particular patch shouldn't
show benefits on my machine as it should be using the more efficient
atomic_cmpxchg. The advantage is in !__HAVE_ARCH_CMPXCHG, where we would
avoid taking a spinlock and 2 atomic operations when the mutex is
already taken.

Thanks.