tree a1d45a54168a77a814537a50cc29cc4fdcf35615
parent 90224350eaaf8b8043b19c393048f732bc2e4120
author Cody P Schafer <dev@codyps.com> 1446856288 -0800
committer Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> 1446861042 -0800

rbtree: clarify documentation of rbtree_postorder_for_each_entry_safe()

I noticed that commit a20135ffbc44 ("writeback: don't drain
bdi_writeback_congested on bdi destruction") added a usage of
rbtree_postorder_for_each_entry_safe() in mm/backing-dev.c which appears
to try to rb_erase() elements from an rbtree while iterating over it using
rbtree_postorder_for_each_entry_safe().

Doing this will cause random nodes to be missed by the iteration because
rb_erase() may rebalance the tree, changing the ordering that we're trying
to iterate over.

The previous documentation for rbtree_postorder_for_each_entry_safe()
wasn't clear that this wasn't allowed, it was taken from the docs for
list_for_each_entry_safe(), where erasing isn't a problem due to
list_del() not reordering.

Explicitly warn developers about this potential pit-fall.

Note that I haven't fixed the actual issue that (it appears) the commit
referenced above introduced (not familiar enough with that code).

In general (and in this case), the patterns to follow are:
 - switch to rb_first() + rb_erase(), don't use
   rbtree_postorder_for_each_entry_safe().
 - keep the postorder iteration and don't rb_erase() at all. Instead
   just clear the fields of rb_node & cgwb_congested_tree as required by
   other users of those structures.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: tweak comments]
Signed-off-by: Cody P Schafer <dev@codyps.com>
Cc: John de la Garza <john@jjdev.com>
Cc: Michel Lespinasse <walken@google.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Cc: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
Cc: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>