Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 1/3] rcu: Add automatically released rcu_read_lock variant

[Daniel P . Berrangé]

On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 06:04:23PM +0100, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
> * Daniel P. Berrangé (address@hidden) wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 11, 2019 at 05:42:00PM +0100, Dr. David Alan Gilbert (git) 
> > wrote:
> > > From: "Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <address@hidden>
> > > 
> > > RCU_READ_LOCK_AUTO takes the rcu_read_lock  and then uses glib's
> > > g_auto infrastrcture (and thus whatever the compilers hooks are) to
> > > release it on all exits of the block.
> > > 
> > > Note this macro has a variable declaration in, and hence is not in
> > > a while loop.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Dr. David Alan Gilbert <address@hidden>
> > > ---
> > >  include/qemu/rcu.h | 12 ++++++++++++
> > >  1 file changed, 12 insertions(+)
> > > 
> > > diff --git a/include/qemu/rcu.h b/include/qemu/rcu.h
> > > index 22876d1428..6a25b27d28 100644
> > > --- a/include/qemu/rcu.h
> > > +++ b/include/qemu/rcu.h
> > > @@ -154,6 +154,18 @@ extern void call_rcu1(struct rcu_head *head, 
> > > RCUCBFunc *func);
> > >        }),                                                                
> > > \
> > >        (RCUCBFunc *)g_free);
> > >  
> > > +typedef char rcu_read_auto_t;
> > > +static inline void rcu_read_auto_unlock(rcu_read_auto_t *r)
> > > +{
> > > +  rcu_read_unlock();
> > > +}
> > > +
> > > +G_DEFINE_AUTO_CLEANUP_CLEAR_FUNC(rcu_read_auto_t, rcu_read_auto_unlock)
> > >
> > > +#define RCU_READ_LOCK_AUTO g_auto(rcu_read_auto_t) \
> > > +    _rcu_read_auto = 'x'; \
> > > +    rcu_read_lock();
> > > +
> > 
> > Functionally this works, but my gut feeling would be to follow
> > the design of GMutexLocker as-is:
> > 
> >   
> > https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/glib-Threads.html#g-mutex-locker-new
> > 
> > so you get a use pattern of
> > 
> >   g_autoptr(rcu_read_locker) locker = rcu_read_locker_new();
> > 
> > This makes it explicit that the code is creating a variable here, which
> > in turns means it is clear to force unlock early with
> > 
> >   g_clear_pointer(&locker, rcu_read_locker_free)
> 
> The difference compared to the g-mutex-locker is that I don't have
> another object to use as my pointer; that uses the address of the GMutex
> as the dummy pointer value.  I did try an experiment with g_autoptr
> and found that it did need to return a non-NULL value for it to work,
> which then lead me to think what value to use - while it seems to work
> if I return (void *)1 it makes me nervous.

Yeah, '(void*)1' would have been what I'd pick. The only thing that the
value is used for is to pass to the rcu_read_locker_free() function
which ignores it, which seems safe enough.

Regards,
Daniel
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