Re: Problems with timerfd()

Michael Kerrisk
2007-07-25T18:20:42Z

Andrew,

Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:32:29 +0200 Michael Kerrisk <mtk-manpages@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>> Andrew,
>>
>> The timerfd() syscall went into 2.6.22. While writing the man page for
>> this syscall I've found some notable limitations of the interface, and I am
>> wondering whether you and Linus would consider having this interface fixed
>> for 2.6.23.
>>
>> On the one hand, these fixes would be an ABI change, which is of course
>> bad. (However, as noted below, you have already accepted one of the ABI
>> changes that I suggested into -mm, after Davide submitted a patch.)
>>
>> On the other hand, the interface has not yet made its way into a glibc
>> release, and the change will not break applications. (The 2.6.22 version
>> of the interface would just be "broken".)
>
> I think if the need is sufficient we can do this: fix it in 2.6.23 and in
> 2.6.22.x. That means that there will be a few broken-on-new-glibc kernels
> out in the wild, but very few I suspect.

So I'm still not quite clear. Can I take it from your statement above that
the proposed ABI changes would be admissible, as long as Davide is okay
with them?

Cheers,

Michael

--
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7

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