Re: 2.4.6 possible problem

[Linus Torvalds]

In article <[e-mail]>,
Richard B. Johnson <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>    ticks = 1 * HZ;        /* For 1 second */
>    while((ticks = interruptible_sleep_on_timeout(&wqhead, ticks)) > 0)
>                  ;

Don't do this.

Imagine what happens if a signal comes in and wakes you up? The signal
will continue to be pending, which will make your "sleep loop" be a busy
loop as you can never go to sleep interruptibly with a pending signal.

In short: if you have to wait for a certain time or for a certain event,
you MUST NOT USE a interruptible sleep.

If it is ok to return early due to signals or similar (which is nice -
you can allow people to kill the process), then you use an interruptible
sleep, but then you mustn't have the above kind of loop.

		Linus