From: "Paul E. McKenney" <[email protected]>
Back in the day, RCU_INIT_POINTER() was the only way to avoid
memory-barrier instructions while storing NULL to an RCU-protected
pointer. Fortunately, in 2016, rcu_assign_pointer() started checking for
compile-time NULL pointers and omitting the memory-barrier instructions in
that case. Unfortunately, RCU's Requirements.rst document was not updated
accordingly. This commit therefore at long last carries out that update.
Fixes: 3a37f7275cda ("rcu: No ordering for rcu_assign_pointer() of NULL")
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/
Reported-by: Matthew Wilcox <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <[email protected]>
---
Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst | 3 +--
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst
b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst
index f32f8fa..65c7839 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/Design/Requirements/Requirements.rst
@@ -1668,8 +1668,7 @@ against mishaps and misuse:
this purpose.
#. It is not necessary to use rcu_assign_pointer() when creating
linked structures that are to be published via a single external
- pointer. The RCU_INIT_POINTER() macro is provided for this task
- and also for assigning ``NULL`` pointers at runtime.
+ pointer. The RCU_INIT_POINTER() macro is provided for this task.
This not a hard-and-fast list: RCU's diagnostic capabilities will
continue to be guided by the number and type of usage bugs found in
--
2.9.5
