Re: [PATCH v6 6/6] fs: introduce file_getattr and file_setattr syscalls

Darrick J. Wong
2025-07-02T18:37:50Z

On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 03:43:28PM +0200, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 2, 2025 at 2:40 PM Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> > > Er... "fsx_fileattr" is the struct that the system call uses?
> > >
> > > That's a little confusing considering that xfs already has a
> > > xfs_fill_fsxattr function that actually fills a struct fileattr.
> > > That could be renamed xfs_fill_fileattr.
> > >
> > > I dunno. There's a part of me that would really rather that the
> > > file_getattr and file_setattr syscalls operate on a struct file_attr.
> >
> > Agreed, I'm pretty sure I suggested this during an earlier review. Fits
> > in line with struct mount_attr and others. Fwiw, struct fileattr (the
> > kernel internal thing) should've really been struct file_kattr or struct
> > kernel_file_attr. This is a common pattern now:
> >
> > struct mount_attr vs struct mount_kattr
> >
> > struct clone_args vs struct kernel_clone_kargs
> >
> > etc.
> >file_attr
>
> I can see the allure, but we have a long history here with fsxattr,
> so I think it serves the users better to reference this history with
> fsxattr64.

<shrug> XFS has a long history with 'struct fsxattr' (the structure you
passed to XFS_IOC_FSGETXATTR) but the rest of the kernel needn't be so
fixated upon the historical name. ext4/f2fs/overlay afaict are just
going along for the ride.

IOWs I like brauner's struct file_attr and struct file_kattr
suggestions.

> That, and also, avoid the churn of s/fileattr/file_kattr/
> If you want to do this renaming, please do it in the same PR
> because I don't like the idea of having both file_attr and fileattr
> in the tree for an unknown period.

But yeah, that ought to be a treewide change done at the same time.

--D

>
> Thanks,
> Amir.
>