Re: [PATCH] ethtool_ops

[Matthew Wilcox <willy@debian.org>]

(sorry for the delayed reply; PCI domain work got a lot more important
for a while)

On Fri, Jun 06, 2003 at 01:17:46PM -0700, Feldman, Scott wrote:
> * On get_gregs, for example, would it make sense to ->get_drvinfo
>   so you'll know regdump_len and therefore can kmalloc an ethtool_regs
>   with enough space to pass to ->get_regs?  Keep the kmalloc and
>   kfree together.  Same for self_test, get_strings, and get_stats.
>   For get_strings, size = max{n_stats, testinfo_len)*sizeof(u64).

That would be one possibility, but get_drvinfo is quite heavyweight.
I think I'd prefer to not do that unless there's a strong feeling about
thing.

> * If the above is done, can we have one function type for the
> ethtool_ops
>   functions?  int f(struct netdev *, struct ethtool_cmd *).  The 
>   drawback is the driver needs to cast to the specific ethtool_* struct.

Definitely not -- the point is adding type safety.

> * Can we get an HAVE_ETHTOOL_OPS defined in netdevice.h to support
>   backward compat?

I'm hoping to avoid that by getting compatibility code merged into 2.4.22.

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