RE: RFC: Serial port DTR/RTS - O_<something>

From: Maarten Brock

Date: Fri Nov 14 2025 - 05:27:07 EST


> > A new open flag "O_DO_NOT_TOUCH_ANYTHING" might be
> > the simplest?
> >
>
> Okay, to I'm going to toss out a couple suggestions for naming:
>
> O_(PRE|FOR|N|NO)?(INIT|CONFIG|START)(DEV|HW|IO)?
> O_(NO?RESET|PREPARE)(DEV|HW|IO)?
> O_NO?TOUCH
> O_NYET ("not yet")
>
> I think my personal preference at the moment is either O_NYET or O_PRECONFIG
> or O_NYET; although it is perhaps a bit more "use case centric" than "what
> actual effect it has" I think it might be clearer. A -DEV, -HW or -IO suffix
> would seem to needlessly preclude it being used for future similar use cases
> for files that are not device nodes.
>
> O_NYET ("not yet") is kind of attractive because it has some geekish smirk
> value, doesn't have "obvious enough" meaning that if you don't know what it
> does you'll guess rather than looking it up, but once you know you are not
> going to forget it! There is even precedent: USB 2 already has the NYET
> packet type meaning just "not yet". The more I'm thinking about it the more
> am starting to like it...

Personally, I don't much like the O_NYET as it seems to describe not to open
the device.

> Many of the other combinations have the problem of seeming to do the opposite
> of what the used wants in some use cases; it seems rather odd to open a device
> node that you are intending to configure with "O_NOCONFIG".

Don't like this one either.

> On the other
> hand, "O_CONFIG" might be a valid indication of the intent (like O_RDONLY or
> O_RDWR are indicator of intent), but also has the implication that it *will*
> cause the device to configure itself. It also would seem to imply that the
> resulting file descriptor can *only* be used for that purpose.

I do like the O_CONFIG or O_FORCONFIG names.
I also like O_PREINIT or O_PRESTART.

Kind Regards,
Maarten