linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Remove or convert empty ioctls ?

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Message-ID: <20091015160109.6d9353e8@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Date:	Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:01:09 +0100
From:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
Cc:	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Frederic Weisbecker <fweisbec@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC] Remove or convert empty ioctls ?

> "no particular value" is highly subjective, and I think unprovable, 
> without an exhaustive survey of userland programs interacting with 
> kernel drivers.  Userland programs often interact with a -class- of 
> drivers, expecting predictable behavior from a DoThisThing ioctl, with 
> EINVAL or "other weird error code" returned intentionally.
> 
> Changing the return codes seems quite unwise.

We've changed lots of them to -ENOTTY over the past few years, nobody has
even noticed (you included ;))

SuS says an unknown ioctl code returns -ENOTTY.

Alan
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