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Documentation/sparse.txt: document context annotations for lock checking 

The context feature of sparse is used with the Linux kernel sources to
check for imbalanced uses of locks.  Document the annotations defined in
include/linux/compiler.h that tell sparse what to expect when a lock is
held on function entry, exit, or both.

Signed-off-by: Ed Cashin <ecashin@coraid.com>
Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
Acked-by: Christopher Li <sparse@chrisli.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
This commit is contained in:
Ed Cashin 2012-12-17 16:03:25 -08:00 committed by Linus Torvalds
parent 8529091e8e
commit 6e9766317f
1 changed files with 18 additions and 0 deletions
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Documentation/sparse.txt
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@ -49,6 +49,24 @@ be generated without __CHECK_ENDIAN__.
__bitwise - noisy stuff; in particular, __le*/__be* are that. We really
don't want to drown in noise unless we'd explicitly asked for it.
Using sparse for lock checking
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following macros are undefined for gcc and defined during a sparse
run to use the "context" tracking feature of sparse, applied to
locking. These annotations tell sparse when a lock is held, with
regard to the annotated function's entry and exit.
__must_hold - The specified lock is held on function entry and exit.
__acquires - The specified lock is held on function exit, but not entry.
__releases - The specified lock is held on function entry, but not exit.
If the function enters and exits without the lock held, acquiring and
releasing the lock inside the function in a balanced way, no
annotation is needed. The tree annotations above are for cases where
sparse would otherwise report a context imbalance.
Getting sparse
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~