r6.1.1:LFDS611_BARRIER_PROCESSOR_FULL

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Source File

/liblfds611/inc/liblfds611.h

Define

#define LFDS611_BARRIER_PROCESSOR_FULL  [compiler full processor barrier directive]

Parameters

No parameters.

Return Value

No return value.

Notes

Processors typically are able to re-order the flow of instructions, where this re-ordering is only guaranteed to be valid within the context of a single thread; e.g. if thread A performs an operation and then raises a flag, where thread B is waiting on the flag, the processor will in its re-ordering only take into account that the behaviour of the thread being re-ordered remains valid, such that in this case we might see in thread A the flag being raised before the operation is performed, since the processor isn't taking into account that thread B is written on the assumption the flag will be raised after the operation.

Compilers typically offer a directive which acts as a full processor barrier, where a full processor barrier the prevents the processor re-ordering both load and store operations below the barrier above the barrier and prevents the processor re-ordering load and store operations above the barrier to below the barrier.

Examples

Under MSVC, there is a compiler intrinsic _mm_mfence(), which has the following prototype;

void _mm_mfence(void);

As such, the implementation of LFDS611_BARRIER_PROCESSOR_FULL on MSVC looks like this;

#define LFDS611_BARRIER_PROCESSOR_FULL  _mm_mfence()

Note there is no trailing semi-colon. It is however harmless to have it in the #define.

See Also