Re: kern/47431: nanosleep is more like millisleep

[mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)]

The following reply was made to PR kern/47431; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)
To: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: kern/47431: nanosleep is more like millisleep
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:04:37 +0000 (UTC)

 dholland-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost (David Holland) writes:
 
 >  >  The standard will just say that the time sleeping must be 'at least as
 >  >  long as that requested'.
 >  >  So if a program does sleeps in a loop for an interval that is a multiple
 >  >  of the timer tick they will always be one tick longer than requested.
 > 
 > That is very much not useful.
 
 But correct.
 
 >  >  Don't think nanosleep can be expected to busy-wait.
 > 
 > Again, that's the whole point of nanosleep.
 
 The point of nanosleep is to provide a sleep function to which you
 can specify the sleep interval with a high resolution. But you
 will always get the resolution that is provided by the system
 modulo whatever the scheduler will allow.
 
 nanosleep may or may not use a delay loop (it shouldn't except
 for tiny intervals). Even then you will hardly get nanosecond
 resolution but whatever some hardware timer offers.
 
 
 > Nonsense. Delay loops delay exactly as long as you want. Because
 > NetBSD's nanosleep is defective
 
 The single problem is that the resolution of the NetBSD timer isn't
 fine enough for your (and many other) applications.
 
 To fix this you need to implement a high resolution timer (might be
 even done tickless), then nanosleep can use this instead of hardclock().
 The two remaining problems with this is that maybe not all platforms
 have a usuable high resolution timer and that even then the timer might
 be too coarse. But on most systems you should get a resolution of
 less than 100 microseconds, that's more than 100 times better than now.
 
 -- 
 -- 
                                 Michael van Elst
 Internet: mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost
                                 "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."