Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:03:30 -0500
From: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: small cleanup for s_lock.h
Message-ID: <arbhohGoRM2Phzm4@nathan>
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I've committed v5-{0001,0002} and attached a rebased version of 0003.
Besides fixing some small things discovered during LLM review, I decided to
remove the restriction that only one of TAS or S_LOCK can be defined.
Having both doesn't break anything; we just use the platform's S_LOCK in
that case.

-- 
nathan

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	filename=v6-0001-Better-express-platform-requirements-in-s_lock.h.patch

From fe366a26ea50a50f0e810a8dd51069285ceefcf9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Nathan Bossart <nathan@postgresql.org>
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 16:01:13 -0500
Subject: [PATCH v6 1/1] Better express platform requirements in s_lock.h.

Presently, s_lock.h insists that every platform provide TAS(), and
its header comment doesn't say which of the macros a new platform
actually needs to supply.  The real contract is that a platform
must provide either S_LOCK() or a TAS() for the default S_LOCK() to
be built on.

To better express that, this commit moves the "no spinlock support"
error to where the default S_LOCK() is defined, compiles s_lock()
only when the default S_LOCK() is in use, and provides a default
TAS_SPIN() only when there is a TAS() to base it on.  The direct
callers of s_lock() in the spinlock tests are adjusted to match.
The header comment is reworked accordingly, dropping the note about
pre-9.5 volatile requirements and the caution about TAS()
spuriously failing along the way.  The latter was added by commit
7f60b81e1a for a long-unsupported platform, and it only matters to
callers outside this file, which commit 499abb0c0f disallowed.

Co-authored-by: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/afkUeI7UhacZ5ZFm%40nathan
---
 src/backend/storage/lmgr/s_lock.c |  4 ++-
 src/include/storage/s_lock.h      | 46 +++++++++++++++----------------
 src/test/regress/regress.c        |  2 +-
 3 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/backend/storage/lmgr/s_lock.c b/src/backend/storage/lmgr/s_lock.c
index 6df568eccb3..795aeed1028 100644
--- a/src/backend/storage/lmgr/s_lock.c
+++ b/src/backend/storage/lmgr/s_lock.c
@@ -91,6 +91,7 @@ s_lock_stuck(const char *file, int line, const char *func)
 #endif
 }
 
+#ifdef USE_DEFAULT_S_LOCK
 /*
  * s_lock(lock) - platform-independent portion of waiting for a spinlock.
  */
@@ -110,6 +111,7 @@ s_lock(volatile slock_t *lock, const char *file, int line, const char *func)
 
 	return delayStatus.delays;
 }
+#endif
 
 #ifdef USE_DEFAULT_S_UNLOCK
 void
@@ -291,7 +293,7 @@ main()
 	printf("             if S_LOCK() and TAS() are working.\n");
 	fflush(stdout);
 
-	s_lock(&test_lock.lock, __FILE__, __LINE__, __func__);
+	S_LOCK(&test_lock.lock);
 
 	printf("S_LOCK_TEST: failed, lock not locked\n");
 	return 1;
diff --git a/src/include/storage/s_lock.h b/src/include/storage/s_lock.h
index 17edc058b74..7e049dfac18 100644
--- a/src/include/storage/s_lock.h
+++ b/src/include/storage/s_lock.h
@@ -44,23 +44,14 @@
  *		atomic test-and-set only when it appears free.
  *
  *	TAS() and TAS_SPIN() are NOT part of the API, and should never be called
- *	directly.
- *
- *	CAUTION: on some platforms TAS() and/or TAS_SPIN() may sometimes report
- *	failure to acquire a lock even when the lock is not locked.  For example,
- *	on Alpha TAS() will "fail" if interrupted.  Therefore a retry loop must
- *	always be used, even if you are certain the lock is free.
+ *	directly.  A platform must provide either S_LOCK() or a TAS() for the
+ *	default S_LOCK() to be built on.  Currently, all supported platforms do
+ *	the latter, so that is probably the best place to start if adding a new
+ *	one.
  *
  *	It is the responsibility of these macros to make sure that the compiler
  *	does not re-order accesses to shared memory to precede the actual lock
- *	acquisition, or follow the lock release.  Prior to PostgreSQL 9.5, this
- *	was the caller's responsibility, which meant that callers had to use
- *	volatile-qualified pointers to refer to both the spinlock itself and the
- *	shared data being accessed within the spinlocked critical section.  This
- *	was notationally awkward, easy to forget (and thus error-prone), and
- *	prevented some useful compiler optimizations.  For these reasons, we
- *	now require that the macros themselves prevent compiler re-ordering,
- *	so that the caller doesn't need to take special precautions.
+ *	acquisition, or follow the lock release.
  *
  *	On platforms with weak memory ordering, the TAS(), TAS_SPIN(), and
  *	S_UNLOCK() macros must further include hardware-level memory fence
@@ -72,7 +63,7 @@
  *
  *	On most supported platforms, TAS() uses a tas() function written
  *	in assembly language to execute a hardware atomic-test-and-set
- *	instruction.  Equivalent OS-supplied mutex routines could be used too.
+ *	instruction.  Equivalent compiler intrinsics are another popular option.
  *
  *
  * Portions Copyright (c) 1996-2026, PostgreSQL Global Development Group
@@ -642,19 +633,23 @@ spin_delay(void)
 #endif	/* !defined(TAS) */
 
 
-/* Blow up if we didn't have any way to do spinlocks */
-#ifndef TAS
-#error PostgreSQL does not have spinlock support on this platform.  Please report this to pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org.
-#endif
-
-
 /*
  * Default Definitions - override these above as needed.
  */
 
+/*
+ * Make sure S_LOCK is defined, either explicitly for the platform or via a TAS
+ * macro for the platform.
+ */
 #if !defined(S_LOCK)
+#ifdef TAS
+#define USE_DEFAULT_S_LOCK
+extern int s_lock(volatile slock_t *lock, const char *file, int line, const char *func);
 #define S_LOCK(lock) \
 	(TAS(lock) ? s_lock((lock), __FILE__, __LINE__, __func__) : 0)
+#else
+#error PostgreSQL does not have spinlock support on this platform.  Please report this to pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org.
+#endif	 /* TAS */
 #endif	 /* S_LOCK */
 
 #if !defined(S_UNLOCK)
@@ -687,15 +682,18 @@ extern void s_unlock(volatile slock_t *lock);
 #define SPIN_DELAY()	((void) 0)
 #endif	 /* SPIN_DELAY */
 
-#if !defined(TAS_SPIN)
+/*
+ * TAS_SPIN is only needed by the default S_LOCK's helper function (s_lock()),
+ * so we only provide a default when there is a TAS to base it on.
+ */
+#if !defined(TAS_SPIN) && defined(TAS)
 #define TAS_SPIN(lock)	TAS(lock)
-#endif	 /* TAS_SPIN */
+#endif	 /* ! TAS_SPIN && TAS */
 
 
 /*
  * Platform-independent out-of-line support routines
  */
-extern int s_lock(volatile slock_t *lock, const char *file, int line, const char *func);
 
 /* Support for dynamic adjustment of spins_per_delay */
 #define DEFAULT_SPINS_PER_DELAY  100
diff --git a/src/test/regress/regress.c b/src/test/regress/regress.c
index c72ee31cdce..3deb4ed7203 100644
--- a/src/test/regress/regress.c
+++ b/src/test/regress/regress.c
@@ -675,7 +675,7 @@ test_spinlock(void)
 		S_UNLOCK(&struct_w_lock.lock);
 
 		/* and that "contended" acquisition works */
-		s_lock(&struct_w_lock.lock, "testfile", 17, "testfunc");
+		S_LOCK(&struct_w_lock.lock);
 		S_UNLOCK(&struct_w_lock.lock);
 
 		/*
-- 
2.55.0


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