linux-kernel - Re: Linux Kernel include files

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Message-Id: <1182483527.10524.31.camel@shinybook.infradead.org>
Date:	Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:38:47 +0800
From:	David Woodhouse <dwmw2@...radead.org>
To:	Joerg Schilling <Joerg.Schilling@...us.fraunhofer.de>
Cc:	david@...g.hm, schilling@...us.fraunhofer.de,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Linux Kernel include files

On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 01:38 +0200, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> The main problems are not really hard to fix......
> 
> -	Most problems eem to be related to the fact that Linux does not
> 	use C-99 based types in the kernel and the related type definitions 
> 	are not written in plain C. This is something that should be fixed
> 	with a source consolidation program or by defining aliases to 
> 	C-99 types in case the compiler is not GCC.

The argument has been made that the standard C99 types are _optional_,
and anything included from a C library's headers without _explicitly_
being included by the user shouldn't define those types.

Personally, I think that's a load of bollocks. And it certainly doesn't
apply to Linux-specific files like <linux/cdrom.h>, which are perfectly
entitled to use a C standard from last millennium, regardless of
namespace 'pollution' issues. That's why we continue to use the crappy
__u32 types. Can you be more specific about why this is a problem? Don't
we mostly define those crappy types using arch-specific knowledge, as
'int', 'long', etc?

> -	Other problems are caused by additional tag definitions that could
> 	be disabled in case of a non-GCC compile.

We mostly try to remove this from user-visible parts of exported
headers. Sometimes we just remove it altogether; other bits are stripped
at export time when you run 'make headers_install'. Again, can you be
more specific about the problem?

-- 
dwmw2

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