instance, you have a list of items that are each kref-ed, and you wish
to get the first one. You can't just pull the first item off the list
and kref_get() it. That violates rule 3 because you are not already
-holding a valid pointer. You must add locks or semaphores. For
-instance:
+holding a valid pointer. You must add a mutex (or some other lock).
+For instance:
-static DECLARE_MUTEX(sem);
+static DEFINE_MUTEX(mutex);
static LIST_HEAD(q);
struct my_data
{
static struct my_data *get_entry()
{
struct my_data *entry = NULL;
- down(&sem);
+ mutex_lock(&mutex);
if (!list_empty(&q)) {
entry = container_of(q.next, struct my_q_entry, link);
kref_get(&entry->refcount);
}
- up(&sem);
+ mutex_unlock(&mutex);
return entry;
}
static void put_entry(struct my_data *entry)
{
- down(&sem);
+ mutex_lock(&mutex);
kref_put(&entry->refcount, release_entry);
- up(&sem);
+ mutex_unlock(&mutex);
}
The kref_put() return value is useful if you do not want to hold the
static void put_entry(struct my_data *entry)
{
- down(&sem);
+ mutex_lock(&mutex);
if (kref_put(&entry->refcount, release_entry)) {
list_del(&entry->link);
- up(&sem);
+ mutex_unlock(&mutex);
kfree(entry);
} else
- up(&sem);
+ mutex_unlock(&mutex);
}
This is really more useful if you have to call other routines as part