workqueues: implement flush_work()

Most of users of flush_workqueue() can be changed to use cancel_work_sync(),
but sometimes we really need to wait for the completion and cancelling is not
an option. schedule_on_each_cpu() is good example.

Add the new helper, flush_work(work), which waits for the completion of the
specific work_struct. More precisely, it "flushes" the result of of the last
queue_work() which is visible to the caller.

For example, this code

	queue_work(wq, work);
	/* WINDOW */
	queue_work(wq, work);

	flush_work(work);

doesn't necessary work "as expected". What can happen in the WINDOW above is

	- wq starts the execution of work->func()

	- the caller migrates to another CPU

now, after the 2nd queue_work() this work is active on the previous CPU, and
at the same time it is queued on another. In this case flush_work(work) may
return before the first work->func() completes.

It is trivial to add another helper

	int flush_work_sync(struct work_struct *work)
	{
		return flush_work(work) || wait_on_work(work);
	}

which works "more correctly", but it has to iterate over all CPUs and thus
it much slower than flush_work().

Signed-off-by: Oleg Nesterov <oleg@tv-sign.ru>
Acked-by: Max Krasnyansky <maxk@qualcomm.com>
Acked-by: Jarek Poplawski <jarkao2@gmail.com>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/workqueue.h b/include/linux/workqueue.h
index 14d47120682..5c158c477ac 100644
--- a/include/linux/workqueue.h
+++ b/include/linux/workqueue.h
@@ -201,6 +201,8 @@ extern int keventd_up(void);
 extern void init_workqueues(void);
 int execute_in_process_context(work_func_t fn, struct execute_work *);
 
+extern int flush_work(struct work_struct *work);
+
 extern int cancel_work_sync(struct work_struct *work);
 
 /*