Transitivity is a deeply intuitive notion about ordering that is not
always provided by real computer systems. The following example
-demonstrates transitivity (also called "cumulativity"):
+demonstrates transitivity:
CPU 1 CPU 2 CPU 3
======================= ======================= =======================
r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0
+As an aside, the following outcome is also possible:
+
+ r0 == 0 && r1 == 1 && r2 == 1 && r3 == 0 && r4 == 0 && r5 == 1
+
Although cpu0(), cpu1(), and cpu2() will see their respective reads and
writes in order, CPUs not involved in the release-acquire chain might
well disagree on the order. This disagreement stems from the fact that
the following:
a = 0;
- /* Code that does not store to variable a. */
+ ... Code that does not store to variable a ...
a = 0;
The compiler sees that the value of variable 'a' is already zero, so
wrong guess:
WRITE_ONCE(a, 0);
- /* Code that does not store to variable a. */
+ ... Code that does not store to variable a ...
WRITE_ONCE(a, 0);
(*) The compiler is within its rights to reorder memory accesses unless