linux/include
Davide Libenzi bcd0b235bf eventfd: improve support for semaphore-like behavior
People started using eventfd in a semaphore-like way where before they
were using pipes.

That is, counter-based resource access.  Where a "wait()" returns
immediately by decrementing the counter by one, if counter is greater than
zero.  Otherwise will wait.  And where a "post(count)" will add count to
the counter releasing the appropriate amount of waiters.  If eventfd the
"post" (write) part is fine, while the "wait" (read) does not dequeue 1,
but the whole counter value.

The problem with eventfd is that a read() on the fd returns and wipes the
whole counter, making the use of it as semaphore a little bit more
cumbersome.  You can do a read() followed by a write() of COUNTER-1, but
IMO it's pretty easy and cheap to make this work w/out extra steps.  This
patch introduces a new eventfd flag that tells eventfd to only dequeue 1
from the counter, allowing simple read/write to make it behave like a
semaphore.  Simple test here:

http://www.xmailserver.org/eventfd-sem.c

To be back-compatible with earlier kernels, userspace applications should
probe for the availability of this feature via

#ifdef EFD_SEMAPHORE
	fd = eventfd2 (CNT, EFD_SEMAPHORE);
	if (fd == -1 && errno == EINVAL)
		<fallback>
#else
		<fallback>
#endif

Signed-off-by: Davide Libenzi <davidel@xmailserver.org>
Cc: <linux-api@vger.kernel.org>
Tested-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Ulrich Drepper <drepper@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2009-04-01 08:59:20 -07:00
..
acpi acpi/x86: introduce __apci_map_table, v4 2009-02-09 13:35:07 +01:00
asm-arm S3C24XX: Move and update IIS headers 2009-03-05 12:00:59 +00:00
asm-frv mm: use debug_kmap_atomic 2009-04-01 08:59:14 -07:00
asm-generic remove unused include/asm-generic/dma-mapping.h 2009-04-01 08:59:17 -07:00
asm-h8300
asm-m32r Merge branch 'header-fixes-for-linus' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/tip/linux-2.6-tip 2009-03-26 16:11:41 -07:00
asm-mn10300 mm: use debug_kmap_atomic 2009-04-01 08:59:14 -07:00
crypto crypto: zlib - New zlib crypto module, using pcomp 2009-03-04 15:16:19 +08:00
drm drm: detect hdmi monitor by hdmi identifier (v3) 2009-03-29 18:31:49 +10:00
keys
linux eventfd: improve support for semaphore-like behavior 2009-04-01 08:59:20 -07:00
math-emu
media V4L/DVB (11313): v4l2-subdev: add enum_framesizes and enum_frameintervals. 2009-03-30 12:43:49 -03:00
mtd make MTD headers use strict integer types 2009-03-26 18:14:17 +01:00
net netlabel: Cleanup the Smack/NetLabel code to fix incoming TCP connections 2009-03-28 15:01:37 +11:00
pcmcia
rdma Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-next-2.6 2009-03-26 15:54:36 -07:00
rxrpc
scsi [SCSI] iscsi class: remove host no argument from session creation callout 2009-03-13 15:29:39 -05:00
sound V4L/DVB (10771): tea575x-tuner: convert it to V4L2 API 2009-03-30 12:43:02 -03:00
trace net: Add dependent headers to trace/skb.h 2009-03-24 14:24:10 -07:00
video [ARM] 5353/1: fbdev: add E-Ink Broadsheet controller support v3 2009-02-10 11:27:59 +00:00
xen
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