Re: [PATCH] net/ipv4/*, net/core/neighbour.c jiffies cleanup

Linus Torvalds (torvalds@transmeta.com)
Wed, 7 Nov 2001 17:22:35 -0800 (PST)


On Wed, 7 Nov 2001, Andreas Dilger wrote:
>
> No, only a limited number of them cast to a signed value, which means
> that a large number of them get the comparison wrong in the case of
> jiffies wrap (where the difference is a large unsigned value, and not
> a small negative number).

No.

Unsigned arithmetic is fine. The _correct_ way to test whether something
is in within

[ start , start+HZ ]

is to do

if (jiffies - start <= HZ)

try it. The C language guarantees that unsigned arithmetic works in a
"modulo power of two" fashion, which means that it _is_ ok to do
arithmetic on unsigned longs, and jiffy wrapping does not matter. No need
to cast to "signed" or anything else.

In short: It is wrong to do

if (jiffies <= start+HZ)

and it is _right_ to do

if (jiffies - start <= HZ)

(as long as "start" is "unsigned long" like jiffies).

Linus

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