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Documentation/sparse.txt: document context annotations for lock checking
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The context feature of sparse is used with the Linux kernel sources to
check for imbalanced uses of locks.  Document the annotations defined in
include/linux/compiler.h that tell sparse what to expect when a lock is
held on function entry, exit, or both.

Signed-off-by: Ed Cashin <ecashin@coraid.com>
Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>
Acked-by: Christopher Li <sparse@chrisli.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
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Ed Cashin authored and Linus Torvalds committed Dec 18, 2012
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Expand Up @@ -49,6 +49,24 @@ be generated without __CHECK_ENDIAN__.
__bitwise - noisy stuff; in particular, __le*/__be* are that. We really
don't want to drown in noise unless we'd explicitly asked for it.

Using sparse for lock checking
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following macros are undefined for gcc and defined during a sparse
run to use the "context" tracking feature of sparse, applied to
locking. These annotations tell sparse when a lock is held, with
regard to the annotated function's entry and exit.

__must_hold - The specified lock is held on function entry and exit.

__acquires - The specified lock is held on function exit, but not entry.

__releases - The specified lock is held on function entry, but not exit.

If the function enters and exits without the lock held, acquiring and
releasing the lock inside the function in a balanced way, no
annotation is needed. The tree annotations above are for cases where
sparse would otherwise report a context imbalance.

Getting sparse
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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