Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 20:46:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu>
I'm afraid that you will find it rather hard to patch - kernel
itself couldn't care less (i_nlink can be made unsigned int - not a
big deal), but you'll have to deal with the userland. On x86 struct
stat as returned by the kernel contains 16-bit st_nlink and you'll
have to
Alexander, if I'm not mistaken, glibc uses a 32-bit field in what it
exports to userspace already, and it is translated between the kernel
and userland structure precisely because of these kinds of issues.
If the kernel syscalls are addded, glibc just is taught to check for
the new syscalls, and then adjust it's struct conversion code
accordingly.
The net result is that userland apps are using a 32-bit field
and they will thus get things right if the kernel starts to provide a
32-bit value.
Later,
David S. Miller
davem@redhat.com
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