Re: [PATCH v5 04/10] rust: sync: atomic: Add generic atomics

Boqun Feng
2025-06-24T16:35:25Z

On Tue, Jun 24, 2025 at 01:27:38AM +0200, Benno Lossin wrote:
> On Mon Jun 23, 2025 at 9:09 PM CEST, Boqun Feng wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 23, 2025 at 07:30:19PM +0100, Gary Guo wrote:
> >> cannot just transmute between from pointers to usize (which is its
> >> Repr):
> >> * Transmuting from pointer to usize discards provenance
> >> * Transmuting from usize to pointer gives invalid provenance
> >>
> >> We want neither behaviour, so we must store `usize` directly and
> >> always call into repr functions.
> >>
> >
> > If we store `usize`, how can we support the `get_mut()` then? E.g.
> >
> > static V: i32 = 32;
> >
> > let mut x = Atomic::new(&V as *const i32 as *mut i32);
> > // ^ assume we expose_provenance() in new().
> >
> > let ptr: &mut *mut i32 = x.get_mut(); // which is `&mut self.0.get()`.
> >
> > let ptr_val = *ptr; // Does `ptr_val` have the proper provenance?
>
> If `get_mut` transmutes the integer into a pointer, then it will have
> the wrong provenance (it will just have plain invalid provenance).
>

The key topic Gary and I have been discussing is whether we should
define Atomic<T> as:

(my current implementation)

pub struct Atomic<T: AllowAtomic>(Opaque<T>);

or

(Gary's suggestion)

pub struct Atomic<T: AllowAtomic>(Opaque<T::Repr>);

`T::Repr` is guaranteed to be the same size and alignment of `T`, and
per our discussion, it makes sense to further require that `transmute<T,
T::Repr>()` should also be safe (as the safety requirement of
`AllowAtomic`), or we can say `T` bit validity can be preserved by
`T::Repr`: a valid bit combination `T` can be transumated to `T::Repr`,
and if transumated back, it's the same bit combination.

Now as I pointed out, if we use `Opaque<T::Repr>`, then `.get_mut()`
would be unsound for `Atomic<*mut T>`. And Gary's concern is that in
the current implementation, we directly cast a `*mut T` (from
`Opaque::get()`) into a `*mut T::Repr`, and pass it directly into C/asm
atomic primitives. However, I think with the additional safety
requirement above, this shouldn't be a problem: because the C/asm atomic
primitives would just pass the address to an asm block, and that'll be
out of Rust abstract machine, and as long as the C/primitives atomic
primitives are implemented correctly, the bit representation of `T`
remains valid after asm blocks.

So I think the current implementation still works and is better.

Regards,
Boqun

> ---
> Cheers,
> Benno