Re: [PATCH 1/2] BKL: Remove BKL from default_llseek()

Alan Cox
2009-11-19T10:12:41Z

> That was implicit in my question: Are there any seekable devices where
> bytes read != offset delta, and if yes, is that correct behaviour, a
> bug, or a silly interface that should go away?

It's neither a bug nor silly, although some of our users of it are a bit
strange.

Consider a block based device. It makes complete sense then that a short
read (eg user space passing a small buffer) causes the seek position to
move on one block. Ditto a block based system with EOF markers might do
that (eg some tape systems).

In the weirdness (but API) category we have things like the MSR driver
which returns an entire MSR for each byte offset.

Alan