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doc: Make reader aware of rcu_dereference_protected

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The whatisRCU.txt document says rcu_dereference() cannot be used
outside of rcu_read_lock() protected sections.  The commit adds a
mention of rcu_dereference_protected(), so that the new reader knows
that this API can be used to avoid update-side use of rcu_read_lock()
and rcu_read_unlock().

Cc: tytso@mit.edu
Suggested-by: tytso@mit.edu
Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org>
[ paulmck: Update wording, including further feedback from Joel. ]
Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.ibm.com>
This commit is contained in:
Joel Fernandes (Google) 2018-10-08 18:33:41 -07:00 committed by Paul E. McKenney
parent 1c7d6d4411
commit 93eb14201f
1 changed files with 14 additions and 1 deletions
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15
Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt
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@ -266,7 +266,7 @@ rcu_dereference()
unnecessary overhead on Alpha CPUs.
Note that the value returned by rcu_dereference() is valid
only within the enclosing RCU read-side critical section.
only within the enclosing RCU read-side critical section [1].
For example, the following is -not- legal:
rcu_read_lock();
@ -292,6 +292,19 @@ rcu_dereference()
typically used indirectly, via the _rcu list-manipulation
primitives, such as list_for_each_entry_rcu().
[1] The variant rcu_dereference_protected() can be used outside
of an RCU read-side critical section as long as the usage is
protected by locks acquired by the update-side code. This variant
avoids the lockdep warning that would happen when using (for
example) rcu_dereference() without rcu_read_lock() protection.
Using rcu_dereference_protected() also has the advantage
of permitting compiler optimizations that rcu_dereference()
must prohibit. The rcu_dereference_protected() variant takes
a lockdep expression to indicate which locks must be acquired
by the caller. If the indicated protection is not provided,
a lockdep splat is emitted. See RCU/Design/Requirements.html
and the API's code comments for more details and example usage.
The following diagram shows how each API communicates among the
reader, updater, and reclaimer.