Re: slab: Remove SLAB_NO_REAP option

[Ravikiran G Thirumalai <kiran@scalex86.org>]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 10:47:53AM -0800, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Feb 2006, Pekka Enberg wrote:
> 
> > Look at the loop, it is redundant work (like acquiring/releasing a
> > spinlock). The cache_cache is practically static, which is why it makes
> > sense to leave it alone.
> 
> There is a loop but its broken by
> 
> 			p = l3->slabs_free.next;
>                         if (p == &(l3->slabs_free))
>                                 break;
> 
> One cache_reap() may scan the free list but once its free the code is 
> skipped.

I think Pekka is referring to draining of alien cache, array caches and the
shared caches before the loop is is broken by above.

> 
> There are potentially large amounts of other caches around that are also 
> basically static and which also would need any bypass that we may 
> implement.

I agree. That's where SLAB_NO_REAP can be used? or rather, change the
name/documentation to mean something better.

OR, introduce smartness in cache_reap to break the loop earlier if we can
somehow dynamically recognise the cache is static. 
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