UCAS(9)

UCAS(9) | Kernel Developer's Manual | UCAS(9)

# NAME

ucas — atomic memory operations on user-space address

# SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/systm.h>

int
ucas_ptr(volatile void *uptr, void *old, void *new, void *retp);

int
ucas_int(volatile int *uptr, int old, int new, int *retp);

# DESCRIPTION

These functions provide compare-and-swap (CAS) functionality on user-space address.

Except that they can be safely used for the kernel to access user-space address, they are semantically equivalents of atomic_cas(3).

uptr
  The pointer to the variable. This should be a user-space pointer.
old
  The value to compare with the variable.
new
  The value to store to the variable.
retp
  The pointer to the memory to store the old value of the variable.

# RETURN VALUES

On success, these functions return 0. In that case, the caller can consult the value returned via retp to check the result of the CAS operation. Otherwise, these functions return an appropriate errno(9) error code, typically EFAULT.

# SEE ALSO

atomic_cas(3), intro(9)

# BUGS

Conceptually, the retp argument of ucas_ptr() would be of void **. The current prototype is a compromise for usability.

October 24, 2011 | NetBSD 7.1