[libdispatch-dev] _dispatch_queue_wakeup_global/_dispatch_worker_thread2 use of dgq_pending - question

[Dave Zarzycki]

On Feb 14, 2011, at 4:20 AM, Joakim Johansson wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am spending a bit of time investigating possible improvements to libpthread_workqueue and reviewed some of the libdispatch code and found one small thing I didn’t quite understand (but it might simply be my lack of understanding the semantics of the gcc atomic ops fully):
> 
> ------------
> queue.c:
> 1490: void 
> 1491: _dispatch_worker_thread2(void *context) { 
> .
> .
> .
> 1502:	qc->dgq_pending = 0; 
> ——————
> 
> Shouldn’t this be set using atomic primitives to ensure visibility of the update of dgq_pending?

Joakim,

The short answer: libdispatch requires cache-coherent memory. The longer answer is that cache-coherent memory implicitly ensures that the store to memory is visible to other processors.

davez


> (_dispatch_queue_wakeup_global() uses dispatch_atomic_cmpxchg() to set this)
> 
> I would have expected something like (#ifdef:ed here to not warn when running without pthread workqueues, as it would be called by a path that doesn’t set dgq_pending):
> ——
> #if HAVE_PTHREAD_WORKQUEUES
> if (dispatch_atomic_cmpxchg(&qc->dgq_pending, 1, 0)) // zero out, ensure visibility
> {
> 	_dispatch_debug("got new worker thread for global queue: %p", dq); 
> }
> else
> {
> 	_dispatch_debug(“unexpectedly got a new worker thread for global queue: %p", dq); 
> }
> #endif
> ——
> 
> Any enlightenment appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Joakim
> 
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