Re: [PATCH] linux/types.h: always export 64bit aligned defines

[Jan Engelhardt]

On Jan 27 2008 21:33, Andrew Morton wrote:
>On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 04:23:21 -0500 Mike Frysinger <vapier@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Some kernel headers exported to userspace rely on these 64bit
>> aligned defines. However, they are hidden behind
>> __KERNEL_STRICT_NAMES at the moment which means most of the time,
>> they're never actually available.

Wrong way. They are inside #ifndef __KERNEL_STRICT_NAMES, so
they _are_ available to userspace.

>> These these defines dont
>> actually conflict with normal userspace / C library types, there's
>> no reason to hide them behind the __KERNEL_STRICT_NAMES define.
>
>Maybe we shouldn't be using these helper macros in
>exported-to-userspace headers.  Do you know which headers are
>affected?  Did you consider jsut expanding the macros in situ for
>thse cases?

grep aligned_u64 include/linux/netfilter{,ipv4,ipv6}/*.h

iptables uses that, but we can get rid of it if need be.
It just throws up 3 lines anyway, ...

>But I'd have thought that if we're going to do this, we should create a
>standard naming convention for types which the kernel exports to userspace.
>Say, kern_*.
>
>In which case the change becomes:
>
>#define kern_aligned_u64 unsigned long long __attribute__((aligned(8)))
>#define kern_aligned_be64 __be64 __attribute__((aligned(8)))
>#define kern_aligned_le64 __le64 __attribute__((aligned(8)))
>
>
>What thinkest thou?

... so could use __attribute__((aligned(8))) directly for exported
headers, like we currently do for pointers (since there is no
alignedptr_64 or so).

>If _that_ is all sane then we should do it all in a singe header file, say
>kern_types_for_userspace.h.  include/linux/types.h would then do:

<linux/utypes.h> maybe? (not_so_long_filenames_please.h.)

>#include <linux/kern_types_for_userspace.h>
>
>#ifdef __KERNEL__
>#define aligned_u64 kern_aligned_u64
>etc...
>
>(all approximate, you-get-what-I-mean)
>
>Duno if it'd be worth the effort, but it is The Right Thing To Do.
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