Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Thu, 26 Feb 2004 22:16:19 -0800 (PST) | | From | Linus Torvalds <> | | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Add getdents32t syscall |
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On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, Ulrich Drepper wrote: > > > In other words, why doesn't glibc ever just make a new major number and > > make its "struct dirent" be the 64-bit version? > > You can't be serious. Can you even imagine the pain this would cause?
Do you know how much pain it causes when you make changes and you do _not_ change the major number?
At some point you need to clean up.
This issue has been with us for years and years. I don't understand why you'd want to add a totally new system call now. Instead, I'd suggest you just put this on the long list of things to fix for when a new major number is to be used.
And yes, you should use a new major number at some point. It is _senseless_ to never update the majors. Just make a clean break, go through every little nagging ugly thing (and there are a _lot_ of them that have accumulated over the years), and make ready for "libc-3.0".
No, I'm not suggesting you do it for this one thing, obviously. But there's bound to be _thousands_ of these stupid things where glibc has compatibility crap that makes no sense.
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