linux-kernel - Re: [RFC][v8][PATCH 9/10]: Define clone3() syscall

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Date:	Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:14:16 +0200
From:	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@...glemail.com>
To:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Cc:	Matt Helsley <matthltc@...ibm.com>,
	Sukadev Bhattiprolu <sukadev@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	randy.dunlap@...cle.com, arnd@...db.de,
	Containers <containers@...ts.linux-foundation.org>,
	Nathan Lynch <nathanl@...tin.ibm.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Louis.Rilling@...labs.com,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	kosaki.motohiro@...fujitsu.com, mingo@...e.hu,
	linux-api@...r.kernel.org, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
	Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@...il.com>, roland@...hat.com,
	Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@...nvz.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC][v8][PATCH 9/10]: Define clone3() syscall

Peter,

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 1:38 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com> wrote:
> On 10/22/2009 07:26 PM, Michael Kerrisk wrote:
>>>
>>> "3" is number of arguments.
>>
>> sys_clone3(struct clone_struct __user *ucs, pid_t __user *pids)
>>
>> It appears to me that the number of arguments is 2.
>>
>
> It was 3 at one point... I'm not sure when that changed last :-/
>
>>> It's better than "extended" or something like
>>> that simply because "extended" just means "more than", and a number at
>>> least
>>> tells you *how much more than*.
>>
>> I'm not sure why you think including a number in the name tells us
>> "how much more than". Unless you are considering the numbering to be
>> version numbers, which apparently is not what you mean.
>
> It is a version number of sorts.

So, sometimes, a number in a system call should be the bit width of
some arguments(s), sometimes it should be the number of arguments, and
sometimes (well, just occasionally, as in mmap2() and clone()) -- it
should be a version number? Does the weather play any part in the
decision? ;-)

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Author of "The Linux Programming Interface" http://blog.man7.org/
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