linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v10 25/27] x86: enable initial Rust support

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Date:   Fri, 13 Oct 2023 12:00:06 -0700
From:   "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Ramon de C Valle <rcvalle@...gle.com>
CC:     Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>,
        Sami Tolvanen <samitolvanen@...gle.com>,
        Miguel Ojeda <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@...il.com>,
        Miguel Ojeda <ojeda@...nel.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        rust-for-linux@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, patches@...ts.linux.dev,
        Jarkko Sakkinen <jarkko@...nel.org>,
        Alex Gaynor <alex.gaynor@...il.com>,
        Wedson Almeida Filho <wedsonaf@...gle.com>,
        David Gow <davidgow@...gle.com>,
        Boqun Feng <boqun.feng@...il.com>, Gary Guo <gary@...yguo.net>,
        Björn Roy Baron <bjorn3_gh@...tonmail.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>, x86@...nel.org,
        linux-doc@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v10 25/27] x86: enable initial Rust support

On October 13, 2023 11:54:46 AM PDT, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org> wrote:
>On Fri, 13 Oct 2023 at 05:18, Ramon de C Valle <rcvalle@...gle.com> wrote:
>>
>> Both C and repr(C) Rust structs have this encoding, but I understand
>> the problems with doing this in C since it doesn't have
>> repr(transparent) structs so there would be a lot of casting back and
>> forth. Maybe there is an alternative or this could be done for less
>> used function pairs?
>
>We actually have some C variations of what I think people want to use
>"repr(transparent) struct" for in Rust.
>
>Of course, that is depending on what kind of context you want to use
>it for, and I might have lost some background. But I'm assuming you're
>talking about the situation where you want to treat two or more types
>as being "compatible" within certain contexts.
>
>There's the actual standard C "_Generic()" alternative, which allows
>you to make macros etc that use different types transparently.
>
>It's not very widely used in the kernel, because we only fairly
>recently moved to require recent enough compiler versions, but we do
>use it now in a couple of places.
>
>And there's the much more traditional gcc extension in the form of the
>__attribute__((__transparent_union__)) thing. In the kernel, that one
>is even less used, and that one use is likely going away since the
>need for it is going away.
>
>But while it's not standard C, it's actually been supported by
>relevant compilers for much longer than "_Generic" has, and is
>designed exactly for the "I have a function that can take arguments of
>different types", either because the types are bitwise identical (even
>if _conceptually_ not the same), or simply because you have a
>different argument that describes the type (the traditional C union
>model).
>
>I suspect, for example, that we *should* have used those transparent
>unions for the "this function can take either a folio or a page" case,
>instead of duplicating functions for the two uses.
>
>But probably because few people aren familiar with the syntax, that's
>not what happened.
>
>             Linus

Transparent unions have been standard C since C99.