Re: [PATCH] drivers: staging: lustre: lustre: include: add "__attribute__((packed))" for the related union

[Chen Gang <gang.chen.5i5j@gmail.com>]

On 02/03/2014 06:05 PM, David Laight wrote:
> From: Dan Carpenter
>> On Sat, Feb 01, 2014 at 09:57:39PM +0800, Chen Gang wrote:
>>> It seems, our kernel still stick to treate 'pack' region have effect
>>> with both 'align' and 'sizeof'.
>>
>> It's not about packed regions.  It's about unions.  It's saying the
>> sizeof() a union is a multiple of 4 unless it's packed.
>>
>> union foo {
>> 	short x;
>> 	short y;
>> };
>>
>> The author intended the sizeof(union foo) to be 2 but on metag arch then
>> it is 4.
> 
> The same is probably be true of: struct foo { _u16 bar; };
> 

I guess so.


> Architectures that define such alignment rules are a right PITA.

Sorry, I do not know about PITA (after google or wiki, I can not get
more related information).

Could you provide more information about PITA, thanks?


> You either need to get the size to 2 without using 'packed', or
> just not define such structures.

Excuse me, I don't quite understand your meaning. I guess your meaning
is:

  "normally, we should not use a struct/union like that, no matter what it is (2 or 4)".

Is it correct.


> It is worth seeing if adding aligned(2) will change the size - I'm
> not sure.
> 

Yes, it will/should make sure that it must be 2.


Thanks.
-- 
Chen Gang

Open, share and attitude like air, water and life which God blessed