Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:13:14 -0500 (EST) | From | "Robert P. J. Day" <> | Subject | Re: what's the purpose of MAXHOSTNAMELEN? |
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On Tue, 29 Dec 2009, Jeff Garzik wrote: ... snip ..
> > so lots of people define it but no one uses it. it *is* > > exported to user space in /usr/include/asm/param.h, but i still > > have no idea what it's for in user space. obsolete? > > According to RFC 1034, "Each node has a label, which is zero to 63 > octets in length" > > What is it used for in userspace, and why is it export from the > kernel? Good question...
it's not clear what value that macro has in user space since (as i've always understood it) the point of exporting a macro like that to user space is so that user space apps can *agree* with kernel code that employs the same macro.
but if absolutely *nothing* in the kernel uses that macro, then there's nothing for user space to "agree" with. in other words, that macro cannot *possibly* have any meaningful value in user space. does that make sense?
my reaction at this point is to simply remove that macro definition from include/asm-generic/param.h. anything in user space that's using that macro is simply using a macro with a completely arbitrary value.
rday --
======================================================================== Robert P. J. Day Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.
Web page: http://crashcourse.ca Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday ========================================================================
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