timer: Improve the comment describing schedule_timeout()

When working commit 6dcd5d7a7a29c1e, a mistake was noticed by Linus:
schedule_timeout() was called without setting the task state to anything
particular.

It calls the scheduler, but doesn't delay anything, because the task stays
runnable. That happens because sched_submit_work() does nothing for tasks
in TASK_RUNNING state.

That turned out to be the intended behavior. Adding a WARN() is not useful
as the task could be woken up right after setting the state and before
reaching schedule_timeout().

Improve the comment about schedule_timeout() and describe that more
explicitly.

Signed-off-by: Alexander Popov <alex.popov@linux.com>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200117225900.16340-1-alex.popov@linux.com

1 files changed, 9 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/time/timer.c b/kernel/time/timer.c
index 4820823515e9..cb34fac9d9f7 100644
--- a/kernel/time/timer.c
+++ b/kernel/time/timer.c
@@ -1828,21 +1828,23 @@ static void process_timeout(struct timer_list *t)
  * schedule_timeout - sleep until timeout
  * @timeout: timeout value in jiffies
  *
- * Make the current task sleep until @timeout jiffies have
- * elapsed. The routine will return immediately unless
- * the current task state has been set (see set_current_state()).
+ * Make the current task sleep until @timeout jiffies have elapsed.
+ * The function behavior depends on the current task state
+ * (see also set_current_state() description):
  *
- * You can set the task state as follows -
+ * %TASK_RUNNING - the scheduler is called, but the task does not sleep
+ * at all. That happens because sched_submit_work() does nothing for
+ * tasks in %TASK_RUNNING state.
  *
  * %TASK_UNINTERRUPTIBLE - at least @timeout jiffies are guaranteed to
  * pass before the routine returns unless the current task is explicitly
- * woken up, (e.g. by wake_up_process())".
+ * woken up, (e.g. by wake_up_process()).
  *
  * %TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE - the routine may return early if a signal is
  * delivered to the current task or the current task is explicitly woken
  * up.
  *
- * The current task state is guaranteed to be TASK_RUNNING when this
+ * The current task state is guaranteed to be %TASK_RUNNING when this
  * routine returns.
  *
  * Specifying a @timeout value of %MAX_SCHEDULE_TIMEOUT will schedule
@@ -1850,7 +1852,7 @@ static void process_timeout(struct timer_list *t)
  * value will be %MAX_SCHEDULE_TIMEOUT.
  *
  * Returns 0 when the timer has expired otherwise the remaining time in
- * jiffies will be returned.  In all cases the return value is guaranteed
+ * jiffies will be returned. In all cases the return value is guaranteed
  * to be non-negative.
  */
 signed long __sched schedule_timeout(signed long timeout)