linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] readdir mess

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Message-ID: <20080812203808.GV28946@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>
Date:	Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:38:08 +0100
From:	Al Viro <viro@...IV.linux.org.uk>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	OGAWA Hirofumi <hirofumi@...l.parknet.co.jp>,
	linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] readdir mess

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 01:21:56PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> We *must* handle partial returns by returning "success". And we do, 
> except for our _confusion_ about ->readdir() returning error and that 
> somehow "overriding" the fact that it already returned non-errors earlier 
> through the callback.
> 
> All your blathering about "positive values as well" seems to ttoally 
> misunderstand how readdir() works. We absolutely do *not* need positive 
> return values, because the fact is, the only positive return value we ever 
> need is the "we already filled _earlier_ buffers". And that's the one 
> that we already do.
> 
> The fact is, NO ERROR VALUE CAN POSSIBLY MATTER if we already returned one 
> or more entries to getdents/readdir(). We should return a success value.

	Would you care to grep for vfs_readdir() in the tree?  It's not just
sys_getdents(); for better of worse the thing had become a general-purpose
iterator.  And I'm not suggesting to pass the damn thing to caller of
sys_getdents().  At all.
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