Re: [PATCH -mm] nilfs2: Use __field_struct() for a bitwise field

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Tue, 7 May 2024 at 07:25, Ryusuke Konishi <konishi.ryusuke@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>    Despite that change, sparse complains when
> passing a bitwise type to is_signed_type(). It is not clear to me why.

Bah. The reason is this:

   #define is_signed_type(type) (((type)(-1)) < (__force type)1)

Basically, the way "is_signed_type()" works is that it casts a
negative integer to the type, and checks to see if the value has now
become a large value.

Now, it looks odd, because only one of those casts has a "__force" on
it, but the reason for that is that casting all-ones and all-zeroes is
ok for bitwise types (think of bitwise types as being a "collection of
bits" - so all bits set or all bits clear are sane concepts regardless
of any other semantics).

So it's not the casts themselves that are problematic: that part works fine.

But you cannot compare a random collection of bits for greater than or
lesser than.

Think of things like byte orders: you can compare two values for
_equality_ even if they are in the wrong byte order, but you can't
compare them for "larger than" unless you turn them into the right CPU
byte order.

Basically, a "collection of bits" doesn't have an ordering in itself,
even if equality comparisons are ok.

So yeah, is_signed_type() doesn't work for bitwise types.

And I don't see a sane way to make "is_signed_type()" to work for
bitwise types - the whole concept of signedness of "bunch of bits" is
kind of nonsensical - so I suspect your workaround is the best we can
do (alternatively, tracing would have to figure out a different way to
test for signedness).

                 Linus