Question about memory barriers

[Alan Stern <stern@rowland.harvard.edu>]

The kernel's documentation about memory barriers is rather skimpy.  I 
gather that rmb() guarantees that all preceding reads will have completed 
before any following reads are made, and wmb() guarantees that all 
preceding writes will have completed before any following writes are made.  
I also gather that mb() is essentially the same as rmb() and wmb() put 
together.

But suppose I need to prevent a read from being moved past a write?  It 
doesn't look like either rmb() or wmb() will do this.  And if mb() is the 
same as "rmb(); wmb();" then it won't either.  So what's the right thing 
to do?

Alan Stern

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