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authorMatthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@infradead.org>2023-08-22 21:04:02 +0100
committerFrederic Weisbecker <frederic@kernel.org>2023-09-11 23:09:35 +0200
commit082acfe39cb0090e97bf27057d0efdf1e89abbef (patch)
tree4d528fa8e4ab6e83abf31170821539d17055d0db /Documentation/RCU
parentebbb9d35fd8497591760779b3d5275fb4ce0e50d (diff)
rcu: Describe listRCU read-side guarantees
More explicitly state what is, and what is not guaranteed to those who iterate a list while protected by RCU. [ paulmck: Apply Joel Fernandes feedback. ] Signed-off-by: Matthew Wilcox (Oracle) <willy@infradead.org> Reviewed-by: Joel Fernandes (Google) <joel@joelfernandes.org> Signed-off-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Frederic Weisbecker <frederic@kernel.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/RCU')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/RCU/listRCU.rst9
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/RCU/listRCU.rst b/Documentation/RCU/listRCU.rst
index bdc4bcc5289f..ed5c9d8c9afe 100644
--- a/Documentation/RCU/listRCU.rst
+++ b/Documentation/RCU/listRCU.rst
@@ -8,6 +8,15 @@ One of the most common uses of RCU is protecting read-mostly linked lists
that all of the required memory ordering is provided by the list macros.
This document describes several list-based RCU use cases.
+When iterating a list while holding the rcu_read_lock(), writers may
+modify the list. The reader is guaranteed to see all of the elements
+which were added to the list before they acquired the rcu_read_lock()
+and are still on the list when they drop the rcu_read_unlock().
+Elements which are added to, or removed from the list may or may not
+be seen. If the writer calls list_replace_rcu(), the reader may see
+either the old element or the new element; they will not see both,
+nor will they see neither.
+
Example 1: Read-mostly list: Deferred Destruction
-------------------------------------------------