On 05/23/2010 07:30 PM, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:

Maybe we should use atomics on index then?

This should only be helpful if you access the cacheline several times in
a row.  That's not the case in virtio (or here).
So why does it help?

We actually do access the cacheline several times in a row here (but not in virtio?):

                case SHARE:
                        while (count<  MAX_BOUNCES) {
                                /* Spin waiting for other side to change it. */
                                while (counter->cacheline1 != count);

Broadcast a read request.

                                count++;
                                counter->cacheline1 = count;

Broadcast an invalidate request.

                                count++;
                        }
                        break;

                case LOCKSHARE:
                        while (count<  MAX_BOUNCES) {
                                /* Spin waiting for other side to change it. */
                                while 
(__sync_val_compare_and_swap(&counter->cacheline1, count, count+1)
                                       != count);

Broadcast a 'read for ownership' request.

                                count += 2;
                        }
                        break;

So RMW should certainly by faster using single-instruction RMW operations (or using prefetchw).

--
Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to 
panic.

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