Re: sysfs binary attribute API flux

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 04:38:46PM -0400, Jonathan McCune wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I maintain a Linux kernel module for a research project*, where it is
> necessary to move some binary data from userspace into the kernel.

What exact type of binary data are you talking about here?

> I
> have been using sysfs's 'struct bin_attribute'.  Unfortunately, every
> few kernel versions, my code breaks because of a change in the
> definition of some elements in this struct.  For example, kernel
> versions 2.6.20, 2.6.32, and 2.6.38 each define the 'read' and 'write'
> function pointers differently. I will spare the inline diff, but they
> can each be seen here:

Is this a problem?  It's only an issue for code that lives outside of
the kernel, and there's nothing we can do about that, sorry.

> My question: is there some other interface that I should be using?  Am
> I using sysfs incorrectly?  All of the documentation I've been able to
> find seems to strongly encourage the use of sysfs.

debugfs?

What exactly are you using this data for?  Who creates it?  What does it
represent?

thanks,

greg k-h