conceptually, a_spin needs to be at least a compiler barrier, so the
compiler will not optimize out loops (and the load on each iteration)
while spinning. it should also be a memory barrier, or the spinning
thread might keep spinning without noticing stores from other threads,
thus delaying for longer than it should.
ideally, an optimal a_spin implementation that avoids unnecessary
cache/memory contention should be chosen for each arch, but for now,
the easiest thing is to perform a useless a_cas on the calling
thread's stack.
the a_cas_l, a_swap_l, a_swap_p, and a_store_l operations were
probably used a long time ago when only i386 and x86_64 were
supported. as other archs were added, support for them was
inconsistent, and they are obviously not in use at present. having
them around potentially confuses readers working on new ports, and the
type-punning hacks and inconsistent use of types in their definitions
is not a style I wish to perpetuate in the source tree, so removing
them seems appropriate.
due to a mistake in my testing procedure, the changes in the previous
commit were not correctly tested and wrongly assumed to be valid. the
lwarx and stwcx. instructions do not accept general ppc memory address
expressions and thus the argument associated with the memory
constraint cannot be used directly.
instead, the memory constraint can be left as an argument that the asm
does not actually use, and the address can be provided in a separate
register constraint.
the register constraint for the address to be accessed did not convey
that the asm can access the pointed-to object. as far as the compiler
could tell, the result of the asm was just a pure function of the
address and the values passed in, and thus the asm could be hoisted
out of loops or omitted entirely if the result was not used.
Rich Felker
rofl0r