linux/ipc
Manfred Spraul c5cf6359ad ipc/sem.c: update description of the implementation
ipc/sem.c begins with a 15 year old description about bugs in the initial
implementation in Linux-1.0.  The patch replaces that with a top level
description of the current code.

A TODO could be derived from this text:

The opengroup man page for semop() does not mandate FIFO.  Thus there is
no need for a semaphore array list of pending operations.

If

- this list is removed
- the per-semaphore array spinlock is removed (possible if there is no
  list to protect)
- sem_otime is moved into the semaphores and calculated on demand during
  semctl()

then the array would be read-mostly - which would significantly improve
scaling for applications that use semaphore arrays with lots of entries.

The price would be expensive semctl() calls:

	for(i=0;i<sma->sem_nsems;i++) spin_lock(sma->sem_lock);
	<do stuff>
	for(i=0;i<sma->sem_nsems;i++) spin_unlock(sma->sem_lock);

I'm not sure if the complexity is worth the effort, thus here is the
documentation of the current behavior first.

Signed-off-by: Manfred Spraul <manfred@colorfullife.com>
Cc: Chris Mason <chris.mason@oracle.com>
Cc: Zach Brown <zach.brown@oracle.com>
Cc: Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com>
Cc: Nick Piggin <npiggin@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2010-05-27 09:12:49 -07:00
..
compat_mq.c
compat.c include cleanup: Update gfp.h and slab.h includes to prepare for breaking implicit slab.h inclusion from percpu.h 2010-03-30 22:02:32 +09:00
ipc_sysctl.c sysctl ipc: Remove dead binary sysctl support code. 2009-11-12 02:04:54 -08:00
ipcns_notifier.c ipc: do not use a negative value to re-enable msgmni automatic recomputing 2008-07-25 10:53:42 -07:00
Makefile Add generic sys_ipc wrapper 2010-03-12 15:52:32 -08:00
mq_sysctl.c sysctl ipc: Remove dead binary sysctl support code. 2009-11-12 02:04:54 -08:00
mqueue.c Merge branch 'timers-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip 2010-05-19 17:11:10 -07:00
msg.c kernel-wide: replace USHORT_MAX, SHORT_MAX and SHORT_MIN with USHRT_MAX, SHRT_MAX and SHRT_MIN 2010-05-25 08:07:02 -07:00
msgutil.c namespaces: ipc namespaces: implement support for posix msqueues 2009-04-07 08:31:09 -07:00
namespace.c ipcns: make free_ipc_ns() static 2009-06-18 13:03:56 -07:00
sem.c ipc/sem.c: update description of the implementation 2010-05-27 09:12:49 -07:00
shm.c ipc: use rlimit helpers 2010-03-12 15:52:39 -08:00
syscall.c ppc64 sys_ipc breakage in 2.6.34-rc2 2010-03-22 09:57:19 -07:00
util.c kernel-wide: replace USHORT_MAX, SHORT_MAX and SHORT_MIN with USHRT_MAX, SHRT_MAX and SHRT_MIN 2010-05-25 08:07:02 -07:00
util.h ipc: unbreak 32-bit shmctl/semctl/msgctl 2009-06-21 12:48:43 -07:00