Re: [RFC] [PATCH] Split host arch headers for UML's benefit

From: Zachary Amsden
Date: Tue Aug 16 2005 - 12:48:24 EST


Jeff Dike wrote:

The patch below fixes the recent UML compilation failure in -rc5-mm1
without making the UML build reach further into the i386 headers. It
splits the i386 ptrace.h and system.h into UML-usable and UML-unusable
pieces.

The string "abi" is in there because I did ptrace.h first, and that
involves separating the ptrace ABI stuff from everything else (if
pt_regs is not considered part of the abi). However, the system.h
split is between random stuff that UML can use and random stuff that
it can't. So, perhaps better names would be -uml or -userspace or
something.


I like this approach. In general, it seems beneficial to split these into ABI and kernel implementation. Also, this stuff eventually works its way into userspace headers. It is not really clear which asm-xxx kernel headers are valid to include in userspace. There are definitely multiple classes of things in the kernel header files : ABI definitions, user-useful macros and inlines, and things that are privately useful the kernel. The ptrace split seems quite well defined here; the system split is a little less obvious, but I don't object to the way you have done it.

I've always wondered why we didn't have memory barriers in either asm/atomic.h or asm/barrier.h; system.h seems to just have a mixed bag of goodies.

Two things about the system.h split - do you use arch_align_stack()?. Also, do you use the alternative instruction replacement functionality, or do you just need the macro? If you don't actually implement instruction replacement, it seems you could more easily redefine these to be

#define alternative(oldinstr, newinstr, feature) \
asm volatile(oldinstr) ::: "memory")

Zach
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