Re: [RFC][PATCH] inotify 0.9.2

Robert Love
2004-09-23T05:10:51Z

On Wed, 2004-09-22 at 21:52 -0700, Ray Lee wrote:

> [*] Here's one of those things that makes me think that I'm
> talking out my tush. The comments claim that only the filename
> will be returned to userspace, but later on another comment says
> that the size might technically fly up to PATH_MAX. Wassup?

Technically speaking, a single filename can be as large as PATH_MAX-1.
The comment is just a warning, though, to explain the dreary theoretical
side of the world. Pragmatism demands that we just use
INOTIFY_FILENAME_MAX, which is a more reasonable 256.

> BTW:
> <pedantic>
> + unsigned long bitmask[MAX_INOTIFY_DEV_WATCHERS/BITS_PER_LONG];
>
> would be more correct if written
>
> unsigned long bitmask[(MAX_INOTIFY_DEV_WATCHERS + BITS_PER_LONG - 1) / BITS_PER_LONG];
>
> </pedantic>

Indeed! Although we define MAX_INOTIFY_DEV_WATCHERS right above and it
is a power of two.

> BTW #2: 'mask' is variously declared as an unsigned long and other times
> as an int. Granted, the two base declarations seem to live in different
> structs, but I can't figure out when a mask-like thing would want to be
> signed. Please consider either changing the name or, more likely,
> changing all usages to unsigned. My single linear reading through the
> patch hasn't quite clarified the usage to me.

Probably should just be an 'unsigned int' everywhere.

But there are a few variables that have the same name in various
structures. That confuses me to no end, but I am jumpy like that.

> P.s. Have I mentioned that I like the inotify idea a heck of a lot
> better than dnotify? Ghu save us from people who think signals are a
> wonderful way to communicate complex information.

Oh, dude, inotify is a godsend.

Robert Love