Re: [PATCH 0/3] readfile(2): a new syscall to make open/read/close faster

Dave Martin
2020-07-06T17:25:47Z

On Sat, Jul 04, 2020 at 04:02:46PM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> Here is a tiny new syscall, readfile, that makes it simpler to read
> small/medium sized files all in one shot, no need to do open/read/close.
> This is especially helpful for tools that poke around in procfs or
> sysfs, making a little bit of a less system load than before, especially
> as syscall overheads go up over time due to various CPU bugs being
> addressed.
>
> There are 4 patches in this series, the first 3 are against the kernel
> tree, adding the syscall logic, wiring up the syscall, and adding some
> tests for it.
>
> The last patch is agains the man-pages project, adding a tiny man page
> to try to describe the new syscall.

General question, using this series as an illustration only:

At the risk of starting a flamewar, why is this needed? Is there a
realistic usecase that would get significant benefit from this?

A lot of syscalls seem to get added that combine or refactor the
functionality of existing syscalls without justifying why this is
needed (or even wise). This case feels like a solution, not a
primitive, so I wonder if the long-term ABI fragmentation is worth the
benefit.

I ask because I'd like to get an idea of the policy on what is and is
not considered a frivolous ABI extension.

(I'm sure a usecase must be in mind, but it isn't mentioned here.
Certainly the time it takes top to dump the contents of /proc leaves
something to be desired.)

Cheers
---Dave