kref: Implement kref_get_unless_zero v3
authorThomas Hellstrom <thellstrom@vmware.com>
Tue, 6 Nov 2012 11:31:49 +0000 (11:31 +0000)
committerDave Airlie <airlied@redhat.com>
Tue, 20 Nov 2012 06:15:02 +0000 (16:15 +1000)
commit4b20db3de8dab005b07c74161cb041db8c5ff3a7
tree894e7d485b2e5d2b1ae0652b55dcd0f3f249fe8b
parentd7144556195ab04a148e722a93103da5438bdf78
kref: Implement kref_get_unless_zero v3

This function is intended to simplify locking around refcounting for
objects that can be looked up from a lookup structure, and which are
removed from that lookup structure in the object destructor.
Operations on such objects require at least a read lock around
lookup + kref_get, and a write lock around kref_put + remove from lookup
structure. Furthermore, RCU implementations become extremely tricky.
With a lookup followed by a kref_get_unless_zero *with return value check*
locking in the kref_put path can be deferred to the actual removal from
the lookup structure and RCU lookups become trivial.

v2: Formatting fixes.
v3: Invert the return value.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Hellstrom <thellstrom@vmware.com>
Signed-off-by: Dave Airlie <airlied@redhat.com>
include/linux/kref.h