linux-kernel - Re: RFD: x32 ABI system call numbers

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Message-ID: <4E5E71A8.8090209@zytor.com>
Date:	Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:38:48 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
CC:	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	"H.J. Lu" <hjl.tools@...il.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Richard Kuo <rkuo@...eaurora.org>,
	Mark Salter <msalter@...hat.com>,
	Jonas Bonn <jonas@...thpole.se>,
	Tobias Klauser <tklauser@...tanz.ch>
Subject: Re: RFD: x32 ABI system call numbers

On 08/31/2011 10:19 AM, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> I think tv_nsec was just overlooked, and people thought "it has no
> legacy users that were 'int', so we'll just leave it at 'long', which
> is guaranteed to be enough for nanoseconds that only needs a range of
> 32 bits".
> 
> In contrast, tv_usec probably *does* have legacy users that are "int".
> 
> So POSIX almost certainly only looked backwards, and never thought
> about users who would need to make it "long long" for compatibility
> reasons.
> 
> The fact that *every*other*related*field* in POSIX/SuS has a typedef
> exactly for these kinds of reasons just shows how stupid that "long
> tv_nsec" thing is.
> 
> I suspect that on Linux we can just say "tv_nsec" is suseconds_t too.
> Then we can make time_t and suseconds_t just match, and be "__s64" on
> all new platforms.
> 

Let me see if I can raise this with the POSIX committee.

	-hpa


-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

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