Re: ptrace.2: Simplify signature? s/enum \w*/int/

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>]

Hi Alex,

On 2/8/21 11:36 PM, Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) wrote:
> [CC += linux-man@]
> 
> I forgot the list.
> 
> On 2/8/21 11:34 PM, Alejandro Colomar (man-pages) wrote:
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> I think we should simplify the prototype of ptrace(2) from using 'enum
>> __ptrace_request' to 'int'.  It is an implementation detail that should
>> be transparent to the user.  Other pages where glibc uses an 'enum' are
>> documented to use 'int' (I don't remember the names of those, but
>> remember having seen them a few days ago.  Otherwise, we might have to
>> document 'enum' elsewhere, which I don't think adds any value.  What do
>> you think about it?

I'm somewhat conservative on this point. It's been documented
this way forever, so I'm inclined to pause before changing it.
I feel like we lack information. I'd like to know about some of
the other cases where enums in glibc are documented instead as int.
But, on the other hand, maybe this is not the highest priority,
so it may not be worth too much effort to discover those examples.

Thanks,

Michael



-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/