Hello! This series removes the sole use of RCU-protected array indexes. It turns out that this use is in x86 code, so smp_load_acquire() works just as well, and this allows removing a troublesome aspect of the RCU API. This removal should in turn allow compilers to better grok RCU dependency chains. For example, expressions like (x-x), (x*0), and (x%1) can result in valid array indexes, but cannot produce valid pointers.
1. Make x86's MCE code use smp_load_acuire() and READ_ONCE() in place of the RCU API members intended to handle RCU-protected array indexes. 2. Eliminates the RCU API members supporting RCU-protected array indexes, namely rcu_access_index() and rcu_dereference_index_check(). 3. Updates the RCU documentation to reflect #2 above. 4. Makes one of the modified functions be static, courtesy of Fengguang Wu. Thanx, Paul ------------------------------------------------------------------------ b/Documentation/RCU/arrayRCU.txt | 20 ++++++++++-- b/Documentation/RCU/lockdep.txt | 10 ------ b/Documentation/RCU/rcu_dereference.txt | 33 +++++++-------------- b/Documentation/RCU/whatisRCU.txt | 2 - b/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mcheck/mce.c | 15 +++++---- b/include/linux/rcupdate.h | 50 -------------------------------- 6 files changed, 37 insertions(+), 93 deletions(-) -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/