From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1759509Ab0GBVJt (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 Jul 2010 17:09:49 -0400 Received: from usmamail.tilera.com ([72.1.168.231]:7198 "EHLO USMAMAIL.TILERA.COM" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757915Ab0GBVJr (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 Jul 2010 17:09:47 -0400 Message-ID: <4C2E5598.2090503@tilera.com> Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 17:09:44 -0400 From: Chris Metcalf User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.10) Gecko/20100512 Thunderbird/3.0.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Matthew Wilcox CC: , , Arnd Bergmann Subject: Re: [PATCH] Break out types from to . References: <201007021811.04197.arnd@arndb.de> <201007021747.o62HlgmV019405@farm-0002.internal.tilera.com> <20100702191910.GA5842@parisc-linux.org> <4C2E3F1F.3010202@tilera.com> <20100702204817.GB5842@parisc-linux.org> In-Reply-To: <20100702204817.GB5842@parisc-linux.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 7/2/2010 4:48 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > On Fri, Jul 02, 2010 at 03:33:52PM -0400, Chris Metcalf wrote: > >> On 7/2/2010 3:19 PM, Matthew Wilcox wrote: >> >>> Why a new header file instead of linux/types.h? >>> >> I was working from analogy to kvm_types.h, mm_types.h, rwlock_types.h, >> spinlock_types.h. My impression is that linux/types.h is generally for >> basic (non-struct) types, with atomic_t/atomic64_t being added as >> "almost non-struct types", and of course the historical exception of >> "struct ustat", which has been there since the dawn of time (0.97 anyway). >> > I think list_head, hlist_head and hlist_node qualify as "almost non-struct > types", don't you? :-) > I see the smiley, but to reply seriously, the distinction I was making was that atomic_t is really just an integer type, but with typing magic to protect it from implicit conversion -- unlike list_head, which really is a more complex type. I suppose one could make a kind of "intent of the founders" constitutional law-type argument suggesting that the presence of "struct ustat" suggests more complex types are in fact appropriate in . :-) > I wouldn't mind seeing kvm_types.h, rwlock_types.h and spinlock_types.h > merged into types.h, personally. They're all pretty fundamental kernel > kind of types. It's a matter of taste, and I'm not particularly fussed > one way or the other. > Somehow it's hard to see kvm_ioapic_redirect_entry on a par with size_t :-) > I just object to the unnecessary creation of tiny files like this. > Which is how we ended up with atomic_t and atomic64_t in there in the > first place :-) > In any case, I think this either way is plausible, but in the absence of more folks weighing in, I think "avoid adding a complex type to " sounds more convincing to me than "avoid adding a new tiny file", though I certainly do buy the latter argument. -- Chris Metcalf, Tilera Corp. http://www.tilera.com