Re: [boost] [thread] Some thoughts about "atomic"

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-12-01 09:39:51

Roland Schwarz wrote:

> There are 3: read_mb, write_mb and full_mb.

There are fifteen, in principle. The basic bidirectional ordering 
constraints are #LoadLoad, #LoadStore, #StoreLoad and #StoreStore, and a 
barrier can include any subset of them. In practice #StoreLoad usually 
implies a full barrier.

A load.acquire can be emulated as

load
#LoadLoad | #LoadStore

A store.release can be emulated as

#LoadStore | #StoreStore
store

> full_mb disallows moving any read or write across the barrier, and so
> establishes total order.

Total order is a systemwide property of the memory model and can't 
necessarily be achieved with local barriers. It's possible for an SMP system 
to have full barriers and not deliver total order. As an example, if you 
have two CPUs execute

// CPU #1

op1
full barrier
op2

// CPU #2

op3
full barrier
op4

then it is guaranteed that all CPUs will see op1 before op2 and op3 before 
op4, but it is not guaranteed that CPU #4 will see the same order of op1, 
op2, op3, and op4 as CPU #3. In principle, at least.