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Commit 5e1ee6e1 authored by Paul E. McKenney's avatar Paul E. McKenney
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rcu: Note that rcu_access_pointer() can be used for teardown



There is no convenient expression for rcu_deference_protected()
when it is used in tearing down multilinked structures following
a grace period.  For example, suppose that an element containing an
RCU-protected pointer to a second element is removed from an enclosing
RCU-protected data structure, then the write-side lock is released,
and finally synchronize_rcu() is invoked to wait for a grace period.
Then it is necessary to traverse the pointer in order to free up the
second element.  But we are not in an RCU read-side critical section
and we are holding no locks, so the usual rcu_dereference_check() and
rcu_dereference_protected() primitives are not appropriate.  Neither
is rcu_dereference_raw(), as it is intended for use in data structures
where the user defines the locking design (for example, list_head).

So this responsibility is added to rcu_access_pointer()'s list, and
this commit updates rcu_assign_pointer()'s header comment accordingly.

Suggested-by: default avatarDavid Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: default avatarPaul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Acked-by: default avatarDavid Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
parent 50406b98
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Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -484,6 +484,13 @@ static inline void rcu_preempt_sleep_check(void)
 * NULL.  Although rcu_access_pointer() may also be used in cases where
 * update-side locks prevent the value of the pointer from changing, you
 * should instead use rcu_dereference_protected() for this use case.
 *
 * It is also permissible to use rcu_access_pointer() when read-side
 * access to the pointer was removed at least one grace period ago, as
 * is the case in the context of the RCU callback that is freeing up
 * the data, or after a synchronize_rcu() returns.  This can be useful
 * when tearing down multi-linked structures after a grace period
 * has elapsed.
 */
#define rcu_access_pointer(p) __rcu_access_pointer((p), __rcu)