linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] bootconfig: Use hexadecimal ASCII string for size and checksum

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Message-ID: <20201119124234.6827fd41@gandalf.local.home>
Date:   Thu, 19 Nov 2020 12:42:34 -0500
From:   Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>,
        Chen Yu <yu.c.chen@...el.com>,
        Chen Yu <yu.chen.surf@...il.com>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        "open list:DOCUMENTATION" <linux-doc@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] bootconfig: Use hexadecimal ASCII string for
 size and checksum

On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:36:47 -0800
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 6:31 AM Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org> wrote:
> >
> > Here is a seires of patches to change the bootconfig footer format
> > to use 8-bytes hexadecimal ASCII string for size and checksum instead
> > of u32.  
> 
> Ugh.,
> 
> Just make it little-endian only.
> 
> The _worst_ thing to do is to make it some kind of "native-endian",
> because then you have to deal with cross building issues etc.
> 
> But using a __le32 type and just doing "le32_to_cpu()" is trivial and
> optimal - not just because everybody relevant is LE anyway, but simply
> because even if you _aren't_ LE, an unconditional byte swap is better
> than a conditional native access.

And since this isn't used in any fast paths, the byte swapping in the
kernel should be a non-issue.

-- Steve