Re: [PATCH] MIPS: kernel: proc: Remove spurious white space in cpuinfo

[David Daney]

On 10/20/2017 01:47 PM, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Oct 2017, Aleksandar Markovic wrote:
>
> > Remove unnecessary space from FPU info segment of /proc/cpuinfo.
>
>   NAK.  As I recall back in Nov 2001 I placed the extra space there to
> visually separate the CPU part from the FPU part, e.g.:
>
> cpu model		: R3000A V3.0  FPU V4.0
> cpu model		: SiByte SB1 V0.2  FPU V0.2
>
> etc.  And the motivation behind it still stands.  Please remember that
> /proc/cpuinfo is there for live humans to parse and grouping all these
> pieces together would make it harder.  Which means your change adds no
> value I'm afraid.

I think it is even riskier than that.  This is part of the 
kernel-userspace ABI, many programs parse this file, any gratuitous 
changes risk breaking something.

I don't really have an opinion about the various *printf functions being 
used, but think the resultant change in what is visible to userspace 
should not be done.

>   NB regrettably back in those days much of the patch traffic happened off
> any mailing list, however I have quickly tracked down my archival copy of
> the original submission of the change introducing this piece of code and
> I'll be happy to share it with anyone upon request.
>
>    Maciej