From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Al Viro Subject: Re: new architectures, time_t __kernel_long_t Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 04:57:31 +0000 Message-ID: <20121221045731.GO4939@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> References: <201211141218.02105.arnd@arndb.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from zeniv.linux.org.uk ([195.92.253.2]:49696 "EHLO ZenIV.linux.org.uk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750908Ab2LUE5e (ORCPT ); Thu, 20 Dec 2012 23:57:34 -0500 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <201211141218.02105.arnd@arndb.de> Sender: linux-arch-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: To: Arnd Bergmann Cc: linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, Vineet.Gupta1@synopsys.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, James Hogan , "H. Peter Anvin" On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:18:01PM +0000, Arnd Bergmann wrote: > The other types that are used as 64 bit on x32 are ino_t, nlink_t, > size_t, ssize_t, ptrdiff_t, and off_t. *Kernel-side* we should not give a damn about the userland nlink_t, period. Making it architecture-dependent had been a bad mistake that essentially made nlink_t useless for the kernel. That mistake had been fixed; please, do not bring it back. If some userland structure needs to include a field encoding nlink_t values, please use an explicitly-sized type when refering to it kernel-side. The same should've been true for mode_t, but for historical reasons we are using umode_t for just about everything and IMO we should kill the last references to mode_t anywhere kernel-side (again, explicitly-sized types for userland st_mode and friends on the last few architectures still refering to mode_t there) and just rename umode_t to mode_t; I'm sick and tired of playing whack-a-mole with code using (arch-dependent) mode_t for kernel data. And no, it's not always harmless - we had rather ugly bugs based on that.