From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andrew Morton Subject: Re: [PATCH] Merge the Sonics Silicon Backplane subsystem Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:12:49 -0700 Message-ID: <20070727131249.74330a3d.akpm@linux-foundation.org> References: <200707271857.24162.mb@bu3sch.de> <200707272130.48973.mb@bu3sch.de> <20070727123853.d16e875c.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <200707272143.59551.mb@bu3sch.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "linux-kernel" , bcm43xx-dev-0fE9KPoRgkgATYTw5x5z8w@public.gmane.org, netdev-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org, linux-wireless-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org, Gary Zambrano To: Michael Buesch Return-path: In-Reply-To: <200707272143.59551.mb-fseUSCV1ubazQB+pC5nmwQ@public.gmane.org> Sender: linux-wireless-owner-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 21:43:59 +0200 Michael Buesch wrote: > > Sure, but why is the locking interruptible rather than plain old > > mutex_lock()? > > Hm, well. We hold this mutex for several seconds, as writing takes > this long. So I simply thought it was worth allowing the waiter > to interrupt here. If you say that's not an issue, I'll be happy > to use mutex_lock() and reduce code complexity in this area. So.. is that what the _interruptible() is for? To allow an impatient user to ^c a read? If so, that sounds reasonable. It's worth a comment explaining these decisions to future readers, because it is hard to work out this sort of thinking just from the bare C code.