1 files changed, 11 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
index d336e4d42029..8e7cf9ad3db1 100644
--- a/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
+++ b/Documentation/memory-barriers.txt
@@ -1710,6 +1710,17 @@ There are some more advanced barrier functions:
      operations" subsection for information on where to use these.
 
 
+ (*) lockless_dereference();
+     This can be thought of as a pointer-fetch wrapper around the
+     smp_read_barrier_depends() data-dependency barrier.
+
+     This is also similar to rcu_dereference(), but in cases where
+     object lifetime is handled by some mechanism other than RCU, for
+     example, when the objects removed only when the system goes down.
+     In addition, lockless_dereference() is used in some data structures
+     that can be used both with and without RCU.
+
+
  (*) dma_wmb();
  (*) dma_rmb();