Re: [patch] pipe: add support for shrinking and growing pipes

[OGAWA Hirofumi <hirofumi@mail.parknet.co.jp>]

Jens Axboe <jens.axboe@oracle.com> writes:

>> > We can easily make F_GETPIPE_SZ return bytes, but I don't think passing
>> > in bytes to F_SETPIPE_SZ makes a lot of sense. The pipe array must be a
>> > power of 2 in pages. So the question is if that makes the API cleaner,
>> > passing in number of pages but returning bytes? Or pass in bytes all
>> > around, but have F_SETPIPE_SZ round to the nearest multiple of pow2 in
>> > pages if need be. Then it would return a size at least what was passed
>> > in, or error.

I really think "power of 2 in pages" is simply current implementation
detail, not detail of pipe API.

>> I'd recommend this: Pass it in and out in bytes. Don't round to a
>> power of 2. Require the user to know what they are doing. Give an
>> error if the user doesn't supply a power-of-2 * page-size for
>> F_SETPIPE_SZ. (Again, consider the case of architectures  with
>> switchable page sizes.)
>
> But is there much point in erroring on an incorrect size? If the
> application says "I need at least 120kb of space in there", kernel
> returns "OK, you got 128kb". Would returning -1/EINVAL for that case
> really make a better API? Doesn't seem like it to me.

FWIW, my first impression of this was setsockopt(SO_RCV/SNDBUF) of unix
socket. Well, API itself wouldn't say "at least this size" or "exactly
this size", so, in here, important thing is consistency of interfaces, I
think. (And the both is sane API at least for me if those had
consistency in the system.)

Well, so how about set/get in bytes, and kernel will set "at least
specified size" actually like setsockopt(SO_RCV/SNDBUF)?

Thanks.
-- 
OGAWA Hirofumi <hirofumi@mail.parknet.co.jp>