Atomic variables

• Useful when the shared resource is an integer value

• Even an instruction like n++ is not guaranteed to be atomic on all processors!

Header

• #include <asm/atomic.h>

Type

• atomic_t contains a signed integer (at least 24 bits)

Atomic operations (main ones)

• Set or read the counter: atomic_set (atomic_t *v, int i); int atomic_read (atomic_t *v);