Re: [RFC][PATCH] inotify 0.10.0

Ray Lee
2004-09-28T21:11:13Z

On Tue, 2004-09-28 at 16:26 -0400, John McCutchan wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-09-28 at 01:45, Ray Lee wrote:
> > The current way pads out the structure unnecessarily, and still doesn't
> > handle the really long filenames, by your admission. It incurs extra
> > syscalls, as few filenames are really 256 characters in length. It makes
> > userspace double-check whether the filename extends all the way to the
> > boundary of the structure, and if so, then go back to the disk to try to
> > guess what the kernel really meant to say.
>
> I thought that filenames where limited to 256 characters? That was the
> idea behind the 256 character limit.

I thought so too, as linux/limits.h claims:

#define NAME_MAX 255 /* # chars in a file name */

But Robert earlier said:

> 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.

...where PATH_MAX is 4096.

So, got me. I believe there is some minor confusion going on.

Ray