Re: bcopy()

Re: bcopy()

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> >
> >XFS seems to be a big user of bcopy, though..
> 
> Does it matter from the cleanliness side?  (1->N users)

It does.

I will not apply a patch that removes bcopy() in the name of 
"cleanliness", if it then results in a number of modules just adding their 
own

	#define bcopy(a,b,c) memcpy(b,a,c)

because then the whole cleanup would be pointless - it would just make 
some modules even uglier than they were before.

So I'd much rather see the XFS etc code moved away from bcopy() first,
because that's the _real_ cleanup. The library code isn't all that ugly in
comparison.

		Linus

Re: bcopy()

[Matthew Wilcox]

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 11:08:19AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> So I'd much rather see the XFS etc code moved away from bcopy() first,
> because that's the _real_ cleanup. The library code isn't all that ugly in
> comparison.

The only user of bcopy() in the entire kernel which wasn't _already_
using a #define was in arch/ia64/sn/io/module.c, and i fixed that as
part of the patch.

-- 
Revolutions do not require corporate support.

Re: bcopy()

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 11:08:19AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> So I'd much rather see the XFS etc code moved away from bcopy() first,
> because that's the _real_ cleanup. The library code isn't all that ugly in
> comparison.

The lowlevel XFS code tries to stay in sync as much as possible with
the IRIX codebase to make maintaince easier (we're a very small team..).

It could be removed, but I don't think it would help..

Re: bcopy()

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> 
> The only user of bcopy() in the entire kernel which wasn't _already_
> using a #define was in arch/ia64/sn/io/module.c, and i fixed that as
> part of the patch.

The thing is, if the choice is between a #define and a bcopy() function,
I'd rather take the function and get rid of the #define instead.

Are there any XFS people that can be shamed into doing a 
search-and-replace and do this right?

		Linus

Re: bcopy()

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> 
> The lowlevel XFS code tries to stay in sync as much as possible with
> the IRIX codebase to make maintaince easier (we're a very small team..).

Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, 
please? 

I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them 
a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. 

		Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds

Re: bcopy()

[Stan Bubrouski]

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> 
>>The lowlevel XFS code tries to stay in sync as much as possible with
>>the IRIX codebase to make maintaince easier (we're a very small team..).
> 
> 
> Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's, 
> please? 
> 

If it were that simple I'm sure it would have been done long
ago, no?

> I realize it might be quite painful for them, but maybe you could buy them 
> a disco tape, so they'd feel a little bit more at home. 
> 

The Bee-gees are annoying, they'll do fine.

> 		Linus "Stayin' alive, stayin' alive" Torvalds
> 

No comment ;-)

-Stan

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Re: bcopy()

[Kai Henningsen]

stan@ccs.neu.edu (Stan Bubrouski)  wrote on 07.10.02 in <3DA1D2ED.6060305@ccs.neu.edu>:

> Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> >
> >>The lowlevel XFS code tries to stay in sync as much as possible with
> >>the IRIX codebase to make maintaince easier (we're a very small team..).
> >
> >
> > Could somebody drag the Irix team kicking and screaming into the 1980's,
> > please?
> >
>
> If it were that simple I'm sure it would have been done long
> ago, no?

How can it *not* be that simple?

No matter if you think bcopy should work for overlapping memory or not,  
there is a replacement standard function (by the 1989 ANSI C standard, so  
maybe the 1980's are not quite modern enough) that does exactly that, with  
nothing but rearranged parameters.

That's a purely mechanical change, on the same level as the kernel janitor  
stuff - hell, easier than the kernel janitor stuff.


I expect the reason it hasn't been done in Irix kernel code is simly that  
there was no real need to do it. I certainly do not imagine there's  
anything *hard* about it.

Hell, you could just use the #define method to map an XFS memcpy (or  
memmove) onto the Irix kernel library bcopy!

No, this is politics, not technical. (On both sides, of course.)

MfG Kai

Re: bcopy()

[Linus Torvalds]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, David Howells wrote:
>
> I've dicussed it with a number of people, and the general consensus seems to
> be that it should be nuked entirely? Do you agree?

I agree. bcopy should just DIE. Some architectures may have historical
trouble with gcc emitting bcopy for structure assignments (and that's
definitely a memcpy with no overlap), but I think that's long gone (I know 
gcc on alpha used to do this several years ago).

XFS seems to be a big user of bcopy, though..

		Linus

Re: bcopy()

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 02:57:12PM +0100, David Howells wrote:
> 
> Hi Linus,
> 
> The implementation of bcopy() in lib/string.c (and some other places such as
> the XFS header files) is incorrect as it implements bcopy as memcpy. This is
> wrong: bcopy should be the equivalent of memmove (which handles overlapping
> areas correctly).

Kernel bcopy in traditional unix versions never supported overlapping.
That's what ovbcopy() is/was for.

bcopy()

[David Howells]

Hi Linus,

The implementation of bcopy() in lib/string.c (and some other places such as
the XFS header files) is incorrect as it implements bcopy as memcpy. This is
wrong: bcopy should be the equivalent of memmove (which handles overlapping
areas correctly).

I've dicussed it with a number of people, and the general consensus seems to
be that it should be nuked entirely? Do you agree?

David