Re: Linux Kernel include files

Adrian Bunk
2007-06-22T15:00:29Z

On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 11:38:47AM +0800, David Woodhouse wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 01:38 +0200, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> > The main problems are not really hard to fix......
> >
> > - Most problems eem to be related to the fact that Linux does not
> > use C-99 based types in the kernel and the related type definitions
> > are not written in plain C. This is something that should be fixed
> > with a source consolidation program or by defining aliases to
> > C-99 types in case the compiler is not GCC.
>
>
> The argument has been made that the standard C99 types are _optional_,
> and anything included from a C library's headers without _explicitly_
> being included by the user shouldn't define those types.
>
> Personally, I think that's a load of bollocks. And it certainly doesn't
> apply to Linux-specific files like <linux/cdrom.h>, which are perfectly
> entitled to use a C standard from last millennium, regardless of
> namespace 'pollution' issues. That's why we continue to use the crappy
> __u32 types. Can you be more specific about why this is a problem? Don't
> we mostly define those crappy types using arch-specific knowledge, as
> 'int', 'long', etc?
>...

It would certainly help if Joerg would tell what exactly breaks, but I
spot one likely problem in include/asm-i386/types.h:

#if defined(__GNUC__) && !defined(__STRICT_ANSI__)
typedef __signed__ long long __s64;
typedef unsigned long long __u64;
#endif

It might make sense to remove the #if and simply require that
a C compiler under Linux must know about the C99 "long long"?

> dwmw2

cu
Adrian

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