aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Documentation
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/pi-futex.txt15
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/pi-futex.txt b/Documentation/pi-futex.txt
index 9a5bc8651c29..aafddbee7377 100644
--- a/Documentation/pi-futex.txt
+++ b/Documentation/pi-futex.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
+======================
Lightweight PI-futexes
-----------------------
+======================
We are calling them lightweight for 3 reasons:
@@ -25,8 +26,8 @@ determinism and well-bound latencies. Even in the worst-case, PI will
improve the statistical distribution of locking related application
delays.
-The longer reply:
------------------
+The longer reply
+----------------
Firstly, sharing locks between multiple tasks is a common programming
technique that often cannot be replaced with lockless algorithms. As we
@@ -71,8 +72,8 @@ deterministic execution of the high-prio task: any medium-priority task
could preempt the low-prio task while it holds the shared lock and
executes the critical section, and could delay it indefinitely.
-Implementation:
----------------
+Implementation
+--------------
As mentioned before, the userspace fastpath of PI-enabled pthread
mutexes involves no kernel work at all - they behave quite similarly to
@@ -83,8 +84,8 @@ entering the kernel.
To handle the slowpath, we have added two new futex ops:
- FUTEX_LOCK_PI
- FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI
+ - FUTEX_LOCK_PI
+ - FUTEX_UNLOCK_PI
If the lock-acquire fastpath fails, [i.e. an atomic transition from 0 to
TID fails], then FUTEX_LOCK_PI is called. The kernel does all the