Re: [RFC 1/2] Unified UUID/GUID definition

[Huang Ying <ying.huang@intel.com>]

On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 15:01 +0800, Joe Perches wrote: 
> On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 14:30 +0800, Huang Ying wrote:
> > There are many different UUID/GUID definitions in kernel, such as that
> > in EFI, many file systems, some drivers, etc. Every kernel components
> > need UUID/GUID has its own definition. This patch provides a unified
> > definition for UUID/GUID.
> > 
> > UUID is defined via typedef. This makes that UUID appears more like a
> > preliminary type, and makes the data type explicit (comparing with
> > implicit "u8 uuid[16]").
> > 
> > The binary representation of UUID/GUID can be little-endian (used by
> > EFI, etc) or big-endian (defined by RFC4122), so both is defined.
> []
> > +typedef struct {
> > +	__u8 b[16];
> > +} uuid_le;
> > +
> > +typedef struct {
> > +	__u8 b[16];
> > +} uuid_be;
> 
> I thought you originally suggested something like:
> 
> typedef union {
> 	u8 b[16];
> 	struct {
> 		__be32 time_low;
> 		__be16 time_mid;
> 		__be16 time_hi_and_version;
> 		u8 clock_seq_hi;
> 		u8 clock_seq_low;
> 		u8 node[6];
> 	} v1;
> } uuid_be;
> 
> typedef union {
> 	u8 b[16];
> 	struct {
> 		__le32 time_low;
> 		__le16 time_mid;
> 		__le16 time_hi_and_version;
> 		u8 clock_seq_hi;
> 		u8 clock_seq_low;
> 		u8 node[6];
> 	} v1;
> } uuid_le;

I just think the struct in union is of little use in kernel actually. I
only find that it is used in fs/afs for converting between little endian
and big endian and DEC version 1 style UUID generation. Both can be done
without the union (struct) definition.

Best Regards,
Huang Ying