环形缓冲区是生产者和消费者模型中常用的数据结构。生产者将数据放入数组的尾端,而消费者从数组的另一端移走数据,当达到数组的尾部时,生产者绕回到数组的头部。
如果只有一个生产者和一个消费者,那么就可以做到免锁访问环形缓冲区(Ring Buffer)。写入索引只允许生产者访问并修改,只要写入者在更新索引之前将新的值保存到缓冲区中,则读者将始终看到一致的数据结构。同理,读取索引也只允许消费者访问并修改。

如图所示,当读者和写者指针相等时,表明缓冲区是空的,而只要写入指针比读取指针多fifo->size时,表明缓冲区已满。
kfifo的定义文件:kernel/kfifo.c
kfifo的头文件: include/linux/kfifo.h
struct kfifo {
unsigned char *buffer; /* the buffer holding the data */
unsigned int size; /* the size of the allocated buffer */
unsigned int in; /* data is added at offset (in % size) */
unsigned int out; /* data is extracted from off. (out % size) */
spinlock_t *lock; /* protects concurrent modifications */
};
/*
* __kfifo_put - puts some data into the FIFO, no locking version
* Note that with only one concurrent reader and one concurrent
* writer, you don't need extra locking to use these functions.
*/
unsigned int __kfifo_put(struct kfifo *fifo,
unsigned char *buffer, unsigned int len)
{
unsigned int l;
len = min(len, fifo->size - fifo->in + fifo->out);
/* first put the data starting from fifo->in to buffer end */
l = min(len, fifo->size - (fifo->in & (fifo->size - 1)));
memcpy(fifo->buffer + (fifo->in & (fifo->size - 1)), buffer, l);
/* then put the rest (if any) at the beginning of the buffer */
memcpy(fifo->buffer, buffer + l, len - l);
fifo->in += len;
return len;
}
/*
* __kfifo_get - gets some data from the FIFO, no locking version
* Note that with only one concurrent reader and one concurrent
* writer, you don't need extra locking to use these functions.
*/
unsigned int __kfifo_get(struct kfifo *fifo,
unsigned char *buffer, unsigned int len)
{
unsigned int l;
len = min(len, fifo->in - fifo->out);
/* first get the data from fifo->out until the end of the buffer */
l = min(len, fifo->size - (fifo->out & (fifo->size - 1)));
memcpy(buffer, fifo->buffer + (fifo->out & (fifo->size - 1)), l);
/* then get the rest (if any) from the beginning of the buffer */
memcpy(buffer + l, fifo->buffer, len - l);
fifo->out += len;
return len;
}
注意第12行,仅当fifo->size等于2^n时,fifo->in & (fifo->size - 1)等于fifo->in%fifo->size,否则出错。
以上代码摘自 2.6.10 内核,通过代码的注释(斜体部分)可以看出,当只有一个消费者和一个生产者时,可以不用添加任何额外的锁,就能达到对共享数据的访问。