Re: [PATCH] splice support #2

[Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@yahoo.com.au>]

Linus Torvalds wrote:

> splice() really can handle any fd->fd move.
> 
> The reason you want to have a pipe in the middle is that you have to 
> handle partial moves _some_ way. And the pipe being the buffer really does 
> allow that, and also handles the case of "what happens when we received 
> more data than we could write".
> 
> So the way to do copies is
> 
> 	int pipefd[2];
> 	unsigned long copied = 0;
> 
> 	if (pipe(pipefd) < 0)
> 		error
> 
> 	for (;;) {
> 		int nr = splice(in, pipefd[1], MAX_INT, 0);
> 		if (nr <= 0)
> 			break;
> 		do {
> 			int ret = splice(pipefd[0], out, nr, 0);
> 			if (ret <= 0) {
> 				error: couldn't write 'nr' bytes
> 				break;
> 			}
> 
> 			nr -= ret;
> 		} while (nr);
> 	}
> 	close(pipefd[0]);
> 	close(pipefd[1]);
> 

I think it makes sense to have a 64-bit length. It just seems
cleaner because it is in userspace units of file offset. Also,
might you be able to do a single file-sized file<->file splice,
and have it do a remote copy on a suitable network fs, or a
whole-file COW on some local fs (maybe not, as splice doesn't
deal with metadata... I don't know the tricky details of fses).

But your argument against a 64-bit length seemed to involve
limiting the usage that sys_splice would see. Make it 64-bit
instead and someone might come up with something that you
hadn't thought of. Is there any downside?

No offsets :(
Don't they only increase flexibility? Or would you prefer to
add a new sys_psplice for that?

-- 
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
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