From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262880AbVG2WYV (ORCPT ); Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:24:21 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262931AbVG2WVs (ORCPT ); Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:21:48 -0400 Received: from omx3-ext.sgi.com ([192.48.171.20]:42392 "EHLO omx3.sgi.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262902AbVG2WU5 (ORCPT ); Fri, 29 Jul 2005 18:20:57 -0400 Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 15:20:49 -0700 From: Paul Jackson To: Christoph Lameter Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, akpm@osdl.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] String conversions for memory policy Message-Id: <20050729152049.4b172d78.pj@sgi.com> In-Reply-To: References: Organization: SGI X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 2.0.0beta5 (GTK+ 2.6.4; i686-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hmmm ... my previous reaction to this conversion code, when you posted an ancestor of this patch on linux-mm, got buried in the crypically terse term 'complex API', and that thread went on to discuss matters of greater substance, such as whether one thread could or should manipulate the memory policies of another. I guess it's time I dealt directly with this code ... My first suspicion on reading it is that it might partially duplicate some string conversion code and syntax that is already present in the kernel for other purposes. For example the nodelists might replicate the lists of numbers supported by bitmap_scnlistprintf and bitmap_parselist. However, since no documentation is presented to describe this new micro-micro-language for describing memory policies, it is difficult to know what the syntax is, without reverse engineering it from the code. So ... how about documenting this string format, then we can discuss both the syntax and its implementation. -- I won't rest till it's the best ... Programmer, Linux Scalability Paul Jackson 1.925.600.0401