On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 15:17:43 +0300, Peter Dimov <pdimov@mmltd.net> wrote:
But why is a concurrent-aware setter useful if its effects aren't visible to the other threads?
In what way do you mean they not visible? Such aligned memory operations are guaranteed to be atomic on ia32 at a system wide level AFAIK. Here is what Intel has to say: ______________________ 7.1. LOCKED ATOMIC OPERATIONS The 32-bit IA-32 processors support locked atomic operations on locations in system memory. These operations are typically used to manage shared data structures (such as semaphores, segment descriptors, system segments, or page tables) in which two or more processors may try simultaneously to modify the same field or flag. The processor uses three interdependent mechanisms for carrying out locked atomic operations: • guaranteed atomic operations ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ • bus locking, using the LOCK# signal and the LOCK instruction prefix • cache coherency protocols that insure that atomic operations can be carried out on cached data structures (cache lock); this mechanism is present in the Pentium 4, Intel Xeon, and P6 family processors These mechanisms are interdependent in the following ways. Certain basic memory transactions (such as reading or writing a byte in system memory) are always guaranteed to be handled atomically. That is, once started, the processor guarantees that the operation will be completed before another processor or bus agent is allowed access to the memory location. The processor also supports bus locking for performing selected memory operations (such as a read-modify-write operation in a shared area of memory) that typically need to be handled atomically, but are not automatically handled this way. Because frequently used memory locations are often cached in a processor's L1 or L2 caches, atomic operations can often be carried out inside a processor's caches without asserting the bus lock. Here the processor's cache coherency protocols insure that other processors that are caching the same memory locations are managed properly while atomic operations are performed on cached memory locations. Note that the mechanisms for handling locked atomic operations have evolved as the complexity of IA-32 processors has evolved. As such, more recent IA-32 processors (such as the Pentium 4, Intel Xeon, and P6 family processors) provide a more refined locking mechanism than earlier IA-32 processors. These are described in the following sections.