why is it called "asm-generic/atomic.h"?

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@mindspring.com>]

  i'm just curious -- why does that particular header file have that
name?  its opening comment reads:

 * Allows to provide arch independent atomic definitions without the need to
 * edit all arch specific atomic.h files.

but that's *not* what that header file does.  rather, it simply
defines the "long" form of the atomic operations that can be used *in
addition to* the arch-specific ones.

  wouldn't it make more sense to have called that header file
something like "asm-generic/atomic_long.h", so as not to mislead folks
into thinking it represented an *alternative* to those other header
files?

rday
-- 
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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

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