On Thu, Mar 09, 2006 at 04:46:29PM -0800, Bryan O'Sullivan wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-03-09 at 16:35 -0800, Greg KH wrote:
>
> > Grumble? Oh come on, don't export binary structures through sysfs, it's
> > in the DOCUMENTATION THAT SYSFS IS FOR TEXT FILES ONLY!!!!
>
> OK, fine.
>
> > If you don't want to export a text file, then use something else other
> > than sysfs, it's that simple.
>
> Use what? Would a sysfs relay file, or whatever they're called now that
> relayfs is moving into sysfs, do the trick? If so, what's a good place
> to pull those patches from so I can compile-test my changes? Should I
> just grub through my archives and apply whatever Paul Mundt sent out a
> few weeks ago?
They are in the latest -mm tree if you wish to use them. Unfortunatly
it might look like they will not work out, due to the per-cpu relay
files not working properly with Paul's patches at the moment. But I
think he's still working on them.
What's wrong with debugfs?
> > sysfs binary files are for PASS-THROUGH things ONLY!
>
> If there's any documentation on what sysfs binary files are for, I
> haven't seen it. It's not in the include files, the source, or
> Documentation/filesystems.
Fair enough, you are correct. There is a serious dearth of sysfs and
kobject documentation lately, I'll work on fixing that up.
> > Ok, here's a new rule to help this from happening again in the future:
> >
> > If you want to add a new sysfs file to the kernel, it MUST be
> > accompanied with full documentation that explains exactly what that
> > file contains and what it is for. No exceptions will be allowed.
>
> I'm fine with this rule, but accompanied how? In a comment in the code?
> In the patch description? In the same way that sysfs binary files are
> documented? :-)
Touche :)
I referred to my prior lkml post:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/383717
which provides a structure for documenting the user<->kernel API, which
is what you are creating here.
> Also, I'd suggest that you put a similar requirement on directories and
> symlinks, if you're going to clamp down on files.
I completly agree, anything that is in sysfs falls under this
requirement. Sorry, but I think of directories and symlinks as files,
as I've been spelunking through the vfs layer too many times :)
thanks,
greg k-h
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