Re: [PATCH] rust/revocable: add try_with() convenience method

["Alexandre Courbot" <acourbot@nvidia.com>]

On Thu Mar 13, 2025 at 11:37 PM JST, Danilo Krummrich wrote:
> Hi Alex,
>
> Thanks for looking into this!
>
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2025 at 09:40:59PM +0900, Alexandre Courbot wrote:
>> Revocable::try_access() returns a guard through which the wrapped object
>> can be accessed. Code that can sleep is not allowed while the guard is
>> held ; thus, it is common that the caller will explicitly need to drop
>> it before running sleepable code, e.g:
>> 
>>     let b = bar.try_access()?;
>>     let reg = b.readl(...);
>> 
>>     // Don't forget this or things could go wrong!
>>     drop(b);
>> 
>>     something_that_might_sleep();
>> 
>>     let b = bar.try_access()?;
>>     let reg2 = b.readl(...);
>
> Ideally, we get klint to protect us against those kind of mistakes too.

Yes, but even with klint I find it easier to delimitate the critical
sections explicitly and not having to remember about dropping the guard
when needed.

>
>> This is arguably error-prone. try_with() and try_with_ok() provides an
>> arguably safer alternative, by taking a closure that is run while the
>> guard is held, and by dropping the guard automatically after the closure
>> completes. This way, code can be organized more clearly around the
>> critical sections and the risk is forgetting to release the guard when
>> needed is considerably reduced:
>> 
>>     let reg = bar.try_with_ok(|b| b.readl(...))?;
>> 
>>     something_that_might_sleep();
>> 
>>     let reg2 = bar.try_with_ok(|b| b.readl(...))?;
>
> However, that's much more convenient and a great improvement.
>
> Feel free to add
>
> 	Acked-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>

Thanks!

>
>> 
>> Unlike try_access() which returns an Option, try_with() and
>> try_with_ok() return Err(ENXIO) if the object cannot be acquired. The
>> Option returned by try_access() is typically converted to an error in
>> practice, so this saves one step for the caller.
>> 
>> try_with() requires the callback itself to return a Result that is
>> passed to the caller. try_with_ok() accepts a callback that never fails.
>> 
>> Signed-off-by: Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@nvidia.com>
>
> Since I proposed something like that in one of the nova threads (and in Zulip),
> feel free to also add
>
> 	Suggested-by: Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>

Will do. I wasn't aware of this discussion, please let me know if I have
omitted something from your suggestion (like better method names, for
instance :)).