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@@ -3,28 +3,33 @@
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/*
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* Lock-less NULL terminated single linked list
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*
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- * If there are multiple producers and multiple consumers, llist_add
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- * can be used in producers and llist_del_all can be used in
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- * consumers. They can work simultaneously without lock. But
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- * llist_del_first can not be used here. Because llist_del_first
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- * depends on list->first->next does not changed if list->first is not
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- * changed during its operation, but llist_del_first, llist_add,
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- * llist_add (or llist_del_all, llist_add, llist_add) sequence in
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- * another consumer may violate that.
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- *
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- * If there are multiple producers and one consumer, llist_add can be
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- * used in producers and llist_del_all or llist_del_first can be used
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- * in the consumer.
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- *
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- * This can be summarized as follow:
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+ * Cases where locking is not needed:
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+ * If there are multiple producers and multiple consumers, llist_add can be
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+ * used in producers and llist_del_all can be used in consumers simultaneously
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+ * without locking. Also a single consumer can use llist_del_first while
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+ * multiple producers simultaneously use llist_add, without any locking.
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+ *
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+ * Cases where locking is needed:
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+ * If we have multiple consumers with llist_del_first used in one consumer, and
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+ * llist_del_first or llist_del_all used in other consumers, then a lock is
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+ * needed. This is because llist_del_first depends on list->first->next not
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+ * changing, but without lock protection, there's no way to be sure about that
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+ * if a preemption happens in the middle of the delete operation and on being
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+ * preempted back, the list->first is the same as before causing the cmpxchg in
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+ * llist_del_first to succeed. For example, while a llist_del_first operation
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+ * is in progress in one consumer, then a llist_del_first, llist_add,
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+ * llist_add (or llist_del_all, llist_add, llist_add) sequence in another
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+ * consumer may cause violations.
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+ *
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+ * This can be summarized as follows:
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*
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* | add | del_first | del_all
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* add | - | - | -
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* del_first | | L | L
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* del_all | | | -
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*
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- * Where "-" stands for no lock is needed, while "L" stands for lock
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- * is needed.
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+ * Where, a particular row's operation can happen concurrently with a column's
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+ * operation, with "-" being no lock needed, while "L" being lock is needed.
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*
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* The list entries deleted via llist_del_all can be traversed with
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* traversing function such as llist_for_each etc. But the list
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