JavaMemoryModel: Cookbook: barriers

From: Alexander Terekhov (TEREKHOV@de.ibm.com)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2003 - 05:43:00 EST


G'Day,

I apologize in advance because I'm surely simply missing and/or
misunderstanding something...

http://gee.cs.oswego.edu/dl/jmm/cookbook.html

"....
 The ia64 cmpxchg instruction also has implicit barriers with
 respect to the locations being loaded/stored, but additionally
 takes an optional .acq (post-LoadLoad) or .rel (pre-StoreStore)
 modifier. The form cmpxchg.acq can be used for MonitorEnter,
 and cmpxchg.rel for MonitorExit. "
 
Could it be that cmpxchg.acq also results in "post"-LoadStore
and cmpxchg.rel also results in pre-LoadStore in addition to
post-LoadLoad (.acq) and pre-StoreStore (.rel) mentioned above?

"However, an ExitEnter (StoreLoad) barrier is in general still
 needed between successive MonitorExits and MonitorEnters. "

Why is an extra StoreLoad barrier needed between successive
MonitorExits and MonitorEnters via cmpxchg.rel/acq? Would
someone please elaborate?

Well, I did noticed the following:

"ExitEnter is needed between (dynamically) successive
 synchronized blocks or methods to properly deal with code in
 which one thread does:

   synchronized(x) { x.afield = 1; }
   ...
   synchronized(x) { int i = x.afield; }

 and another does:

   synchronized(x) { x.afield = 2; }
   ...
   synchronized(x) { int i = x.afield; }

 ExitEnter is the same as StoreLoad unless atomic instructions
 are used in MonitorExit and/or MonitorEnter and at least one
 of these provide a barrier with at least the properties of
 StoreLoad, in which case it is a no-op. "

But I don't quite understand what's the problem here. :-(

Now, with respect to PowerPC... The cookbook says that isync
is a LoadLoad barrier. I don't think so. To the best of my
knowledge, the isync instruction can be used to build a sort
of "PowerPC version" of IA64's cmpxchg.acq with post-LoadLoad
(and post-LoadStore? please see the question above), but on
its own (without some "branch instruction that depends on the
value returned by a preceding Load instruction" -- pls see the
Book-E), it can NOT be used as LoadLoad barrier. The Book-E
actually says: "The isync instruction may complete before
storage accesses associated with instructions preceding the
isync instruction have been performed."

What am I missing and/or misunderstanding here? TIA.

regards,
alexander.

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