Re: [patch 1/2] ptrace, security: rename ptrace_may_access => ptrace_access_check

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Thu, 7 May 2009 11:49:47 +0200
Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> wrote:

> The ptrace_may_access() methods are named confusingly - some 
> variants return a bool, while the security subsystem methods have a 
> retval convention.
> 
> Rename it to ptrace_access_check, to reduce the confusion factor. A 
> followup patch eliminates the bool usage.

s/may_access/access_check/ is a poor change.  The new name conveys less
information than the old one.

It's quite clear what the return value from "may_access" means.  It's
less clear what the return value from a function called "access_check"
means.

Switching to something like ptrace_task_accessible() or
ptrace_may_access_task() would be better.

This happens quite often.  The string "check" in the name of a
predicate function is a red flag.