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- .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
- =============
- ID Allocation
- =============
- :Author: Matthew Wilcox
- Overview
- ========
- A common problem to solve is allocating identifiers (IDs); generally
- small numbers which identify a thing. Examples include file descriptors,
- process IDs, packet identifiers in networking protocols, SCSI tags
- and device instance numbers. The IDR and the IDA provide a reasonable
- solution to the problem to avoid everybody inventing their own. The IDR
- provides the ability to map an ID to a pointer, while the IDA provides
- only ID allocation, and as a result is much more memory-efficient.
- The IDR interface is deprecated; please use the :doc:`XArray <xarray>`
- instead.
- IDR usage
- =========
- Start by initialising an IDR, either with DEFINE_IDR()
- for statically allocated IDRs or idr_init() for dynamically
- allocated IDRs.
- You can call idr_alloc() to allocate an unused ID. Look up
- the pointer you associated with the ID by calling idr_find()
- and free the ID by calling idr_remove().
- If you need to change the pointer associated with an ID, you can call
- idr_replace(). One common reason to do this is to reserve an
- ID by passing a ``NULL`` pointer to the allocation function; initialise the
- object with the reserved ID and finally insert the initialised object
- into the IDR.
- Some users need to allocate IDs larger than ``INT_MAX``. So far all of
- these users have been content with a ``UINT_MAX`` limit, and they use
- idr_alloc_u32(). If you need IDs that will not fit in a u32,
- we will work with you to address your needs.
- If you need to allocate IDs sequentially, you can use
- idr_alloc_cyclic(). The IDR becomes less efficient when dealing
- with larger IDs, so using this function comes at a slight cost.
- To perform an action on all pointers used by the IDR, you can
- either use the callback-based idr_for_each() or the
- iterator-style idr_for_each_entry(). You may need to use
- idr_for_each_entry_continue() to continue an iteration. You can
- also use idr_get_next() if the iterator doesn't fit your needs.
- When you have finished using an IDR, you can call idr_destroy()
- to release the memory used by the IDR. This will not free the objects
- pointed to from the IDR; if you want to do that, use one of the iterators
- to do it.
- You can use idr_is_empty() to find out whether there are any
- IDs currently allocated.
- If you need to take a lock while allocating a new ID from the IDR,
- you may need to pass a restrictive set of GFP flags, which can lead
- to the IDR being unable to allocate memory. To work around this,
- you can call idr_preload() before taking the lock, and then
- idr_preload_end() after the allocation.
- .. kernel-doc:: include/linux/idr.h
- :doc: idr sync
- IDA usage
- =========
- .. kernel-doc:: lib/idr.c
- :doc: IDA description
- Functions and structures
- ========================
- .. kernel-doc:: include/linux/idr.h
- :functions:
- .. kernel-doc:: lib/idr.c
- :functions:
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