Re: [PATCH 7/8] i2c: add 'transferred' field to struct i2c_msg

Al Viro
2012-10-27T16:40:13Z

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 04:32:24PM +0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
> On Thu, 25 Oct 2012 15:18:00 +0100, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 03:56:33PM +0200, Jean Delvare wrote:
> > > The original idea of using the hole in the i2c_msg structure is from
> > > David Brownell, who was apparently familiar with such practice, so I
> > > assumed it was OK. Actually I still assume it is, until someone comes
> > > with an supported architecture where it is not.
> >
> > According to Al Viro, that would be m68k.
>
> OK... So to make things clear, let me ask Al directly about it. Al, can
> you please tell us if:
[snip]
> would break binary compatibility on m68k or any other architecture you
> are familiar with? Note that struct i2c_msg isn't declared with
> attribute packed, so my assumption was that pointer "buf" was align on
> at least 4 bytes, leaving a hole between len and buf. Am I wrong?

You are wrong. Assumption that pointers are aligned to 32bit boundary
is simply not true. In particular, on m68k alignment is 16bit, i.e. there
struct foo {
char x;
void *p;
}; will have 1 byte occupied by x, followed by 1-byte gap, followed by 4 bytes
occupied by p.

Note, BTW, that m68k includes things like coldfire, etc. and I wouldn't be
surprised by e.g. coldfire-based SoC with i2c on it.