From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261244AbUBZXNV (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:13:21 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261291AbUBZXM5 (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:12:57 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:62922 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261264AbUBZXJq (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Feb 2004 18:09:46 -0500 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 15:15:25 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: Jakub Jelinek cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, drepper@redhat.com Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add getdents32t syscall In-Reply-To: <20040226223212.GA31589@devserv.devel.redhat.com> Message-ID: References: <20040226193819.GA3501@sunsite.ms.mff.cuni.cz> <20040226223212.GA31589@devserv.devel.redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, Jakub Jelinek wrote: > > Userland struct dirent is: Ahh. So with the new thing, you'd need no conversion at all. > (since 1997 or so), so with the extended getdents syscall glibc would need > to memmove every name by 1 byte. The thing is, I hate encouraging glibc's behaviour of "we'll make up our own structures", and then ask the kernel to fix it later when it was done wrong in glibc. This is a totally new format that is totally unnecessary, and the RIGHT thing to do is to have glibc just use the proper 64-bit format. In other words, why doesn't glibc ever just make a new major number and make its "struct dirent" be the 64-bit version? It is _ridiculous_ to carry this baggage around, and then complain and add MORE baggage to the kernel because of having done things wrong the first time around. Linus