问题
A thread that reads a shared variable has first to call flush, and a thread that writes to a shared variable has to call OpenMP flush afterwards, to keep the shared variable in main memory and cache synchronized. How does the flush function know in which direction to flush? It needs to know which of both variables (main memory or cache) is newer. I assume, but I am not sure, that the OS or CPU take care of this somehow. Does someone know?
回答1:
flush is not a function - it is an OpenMP compiler directive. It affects the way the compiler generates the executable code and instructs it to synchronise the values of all optimised variables (stored in CPU registers or other explicitly programmable cache / thread-local memory) in the flush-set. This is similar to the effect that the volatile storage modifier has on code generation, but has more limited point-local effect.
How does it work? While parsing the source code, the compiler analyses the flow of statements and the data (variables) that gets affected by those statements. Consequently the compiler builds an execution graph and a data dependency graph from the code. It knows exactly where and how the value of each variable is being used and the execution of which code block affects which variables. Then the compiler tries to optimise the code by simplifying the graph and to reduce the number of expensive memory operations by either using CPU registers to store intermediate values or by using another for of faster thread-addressable local memory. The flush directive adds special points in the execution graph, where the compiler must explicitly synchronise the memory view of the thread (register variables and local-memory variables) with the global shared memory. Since the compiler has built the dependency graph in the first place, it knows exactly which variables in the flush-set were modified and hence have to be written to the shared memory; all other variables in the flush-set have to be read from the shared memory.
So the answer to your question is that it is usually the compiler who processes the flush directive, not the OS, although the compiler might call into the OS to actually implement the flush, e.g. on systems with explicitly programmable caches/local memories. But one should also note that OpenMP is an abstract standard, which can be implemented on many different hardware platforms and that some of those platforms provide certain hardware that can help with implementing the OpenMP abstractions more efficiently (e.g. the CPU ASIC in IBM's Blue Gene/Q provides many such features).
回答2:
You don't need to call flush to keep shared variables synchronized. The hardware (CPU) does keep track of cached memory and if there are conflicting accesses, they will slow down your program, because the cache will be flushed by CPU.
I understand the flush directive more like a conditional barrier. A flush containing the same variable must be encountered by at least two threads to have an effect. When this directive is met by two threads with say variable a in common, if they have modified it they will write back their modifications to memory (as opposed to keep it in a local variable or register), and then I suppose there is a barrier for both thread to get to that point before they continue. If the variable a is used after the flush it is reread from memory.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14858773/how-does-my-os-know-in-which-direction-to-flush-if-i-use-openmp-flush-function