Messages in this thread | | | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Date | Tue, 2 Aug 2016 12:27:27 -0400 | Subject | Re: [PATCH 0029/1285] Replace numeric parameter like 0444 with macro |
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On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 8:16 AM, Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote: >> } >> -static DEVICE_ATTR(chip_width, 0444, chip_width_show, NULL); >> +static DEVICE_ATTR(chip_width, S_IRUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH, chip_width_show, NULL);
I detest these patches.
It's actually *MUCH* easer to see that "oh, everybody gets to read" when you see something like 0444, and seeing 0600 is a very clear "owner only".
I contrast, something like S_IRUSR | S_IRGRP | S_IROTH you actually have to _read_ to figure it out.
I seriously believe that when it comes to UNIX chmod masks, the octal representation is much better.
> You do know about S_IRUGO, right? Why not use that?
Actually, that one is even worse. And part of it is exactly that there are nineteen billion of these "random letter combinations" that are visually almost entirely indistinguishable from each other, so part of the problem with the symbolic names is exactly that you have to read them, and you have to read them *CAREFULLY*.
In contrast, 0444 is completely unambiguous, and doesn't take a lot of effort to parse.
Honestly, the whole "use symbolic names instead of numbers" only makes sense if the symbolic names are easier to parse or understand. In the case of the unix permission masks, that simply isn't the case. Never has been. Those names are an abomination, and should just die.
So I don't want to see _any_ of these patches being applied, personally. Much less being bombarded with hundreds of patches with the same subject line and contents.
Linus
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