Some doubts on MUTEX

[subin gangadharan]

Hi All,

I am trying to understand how to use mutex API's properly,so while going
through the documentation,
there is section mentioning fast path and slow path for mutexes.

For your reference I am pasting this here.(kernel/mutex.c)
/*
 * We split the mutex lock/unlock logic into separate fastpath and
 * slowpath functions, to reduce the register pressure on the fastpath.
 * We also put the fastpath first in the kernel image, to make sure the
 * branch is predicted by the CPU as default-untaken.
 */
static __used noinline void __sched
__mutex_lock_slowpath(atomic_t *lock_count);


Can someone help me to understand what is the difference between fastpath
lock and slowpath lock?

Thanks in advance

Subin Gangadharan
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