vmstat's entries type

[Sten Daniel Sørsdal]

sthaug at nethelp.no wrote:
>>> One approach that we could use for 64-bit counters would be to just
>>> use 32-bits one, and poll them for overflow and bump an overflow
>>> count.  This assumes that the 32-bit counters overflow much less often
>>> than the polling interval, and easily triples the amount of storage
>>> for each of them...  It is ugly :-(
>>>
>> What's wrong with the add+adc (asm) approach found on any i386?
> 
> Presumably the fact that add + adc isn't an atomic operation. So if
> you want to guarantee 64 bit consistency, you need locking or similar.
> 

Would it not be necessary to do this locking anyway?
I don't see how polling for overflow would help this consistency.
Are both suggestions insufficient?

-- 
Sten Daniel Sørsdal