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Date:      Fri, 08 Dec 2000 17:13:59 -0800
From:      Arun Sharma <arun@sharmas.dhs.org>
To:        Chuck Paterson <cp@bsdi.com>
Cc:        smp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Userland atomic assignments
Message-ID:  <3A318757.4040108@sharmas.dhs.org>
References:  <200012091602.eB9G2UH06249@berserker.bsdi.com>

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Chuck Paterson wrote:

> }
> }However, the complexity comes from memory ordering issues. All of x86 boxes
> }ensure sequential consistency.
> }
> 
> Sequenctial consistency from a single processor, which may well
> be what you meant.

Actually, what I wrote in my previous mail wasn't completely accurate 
about sequential
consistency. (c == d) => (a == b) basically means writes happen in program
order as you say above.

> Writes from different processors to different cache lines are not
> ordered with respect to one another.  Also writes from one processor
> are not at all ordered with respect to reads from another processor.
> 
> What is guaranteed is that writes from a single processor will be
> ordered with respect to one another as viewed from any processor.


What sequential consistency guarantees is that writes as seen from
some other processor would make sense for _some_ arbitrary intermixing
of writes from other processors.   

A more formal definition:

http://whatis.techtarget.com/WhatIs_Definition_Page/0,4152,212962,00.html
   -Arun





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