From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760973AbYDNOtO (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:49:14 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752078AbYDNOs7 (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:48:59 -0400 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:55453 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751320AbYDNOs6 (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:48:58 -0400 Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:48:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Christoph Hellwig cc: Davide Libenzi , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Andrew Morton , Al Viro Subject: Re: [patch] F_GETPATH for linux In-Reply-To: <20080414061958.GA21202@infradead.org> Message-ID: References: <20080414061958.GA21202@infradead.org> User-Agent: Alpine 1.00 (LFD 882 2007-12-20) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 14 Apr 2008, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > Adding a duplicated API like this is rather pointless. Especially as > the readlink is easier and makes more sense. Well, I wouldn't say "makes more sense". It may be more traditional (for Linux), but it has its problems, notably performance. One use of F_GETPATH is for server code, to check that a previous open() didn't follow symlinks to outside of some specified area. Not that I like F_GETPATH much either, but portability is a strong enough argument that coming up with some *other* way is probably not great. Linus