Re: [RFC v2] bpf.2: Use standard types and attributes

[Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)]

Hi Daniel,

On 5/4/21 10:06 PM, Daniel Borkmann wrote:
> > On 5/4/21 6:08 PM, Daniel Borkmann wrote:
> >  >
> >  > But what /problem/ is this really solving? Why bother to change 
> > this /now/
> >  > after so many years?! I think this is causing more confusion than 
> > solving
> >  > anything, really. Moreover, what are you doing with all the
> >  > __{le,be}{16,32,64}
> >  > types in uapi? Anyway, NAK for bpf.2 specifically, and the idea 
> > generally..
> >
> > I'm trying to clarify the manual pages as much as possible, by using 
> > standard conventions and similar structure all around the pages.  Not 
> > everyone understands kernel conventions.  Basically, Zack said very 
> > much what I had in mind with this patch.
>
> But then are you also converting, for example, __{le,be}{16,32,64} to plain
> uint{16,32,64}_t in the man pages and thus removing contextual information
> (or inventing new equivalent types)?
>
> What about other types exposed to user space like __sum16, __wsum, or 
> __poll_t
> when they are part of a man page, etc?

Sorry, I forgot to address that part in my answer.  If there's no 
standard way of naming a type without losing information, we can use the 
kernel naming.  I have no objection to that.

These are the only pages that seem to be using those:

$ grep -Enr '\b__[a-z][a-z]+[0-9]+' man?
man2/clone.2:44:clone, __clone2, clone3 \- create a child process
man2/clone.2:1694:.BI "int __clone2(int (*" "fn" ")(void *),"
man2/clone.2:1717:.BR __clone2 ()
man7/sock_diag.7:362:    __be16  idiag_sport;
man7/sock_diag.7:363:    __be16  idiag_dport;
man7/sock_diag.7:364:    __be32  idiag_src[4];
man7/sock_diag.7:365:    __be32  idiag_dst[4];
man7/bpf-helpers.7:514:.B \fBlong bpf_skb_vlan_push(struct sk_buff 
*\fP\fIskb\fP\fB, __be16\fP \fIvlan_proto\fP\fB, u16\fP 
\fIvlan_tci\fP\fB)\fP
man7/bpf-helpers.7:878:.B \fBs64 bpf_csum_diff(__be32 *\fP\fIfrom\fP\fB, 
u32\fP \fIfrom_size\fP\fB, __be32 *\fP\fIto\fP\fB, u32\fP 
\fIto_size\fP\fB, __wsum\fP \fIseed\fP\fB)\fP
man7/bpf-helpers.7:949:.B \fBlong bpf_skb_change_proto(struct sk_buff 
*\fP\fIskb\fP\fB, __be16\fP \fIproto\fP\fB, u64\fP \fIflags\fP\fB)\fP
man7/system_data_types.7:473:.I __int128
man7/system_data_types.7:475:.I __int128
man7/system_data_types.7:1584:.I unsigned __int128
man7/system_data_types.7:1586:.I unsigned __int128
$

So sock_diag.7 and bpf-helpers.7 and only a handful of cases. Not much 
of a problem.  I'd keep those untouched.

Regards,

Alex



--
Alejandro Colomar
Linux man-pages comaintainer; https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/