Re: [RFC] bpf.2: Use standard types and attributes

Zack Weinberg
2021-04-25T19:28:18Z

On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 12:52 PM Alexei Starovoitov via Libc-alpha
<libc-alpha@sourceware.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 10:56 AM Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)
> <alx.manpages@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Alexei,
> >
> > On 4/24/21 1:20 AM, Alexei Starovoitov wrote:
> > > Nack.
> > > The man page should describe the kernel api the way it is in .h file.
> >
> > Why?
>
> Because man page must describe the linux uapi headers the way they
> are installed in the system and not invent alternative implementations.
> The users will include those .h with __u32 and will see them in their code.
> Man page saying something else is a dangerous lie.

Why do you consider it _dangerous_ for the manpages to replace __u32
with uint32_t, when we know by construction that the two types will
always be the same? Alejandro's preference for the types standardized
by ISO C seems perfectly reasonable to me for documentation; people
reading the documentation can be expected to already know what they
mean, unlike the Linux-specifc __[iu]NN types. Also, all else being
equal, documentation should avoid use of symbols in the ISO C reserved
namespace.

If anything I would argue that it is the uapi headers that should be
changed, to use the <stdint.h> types.

zw