Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: 2.1.118 Tons of oopes | Date | Thu, 27 Aug 1998 18:28:38 -0300 | From | "Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH" <> |
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In message <199808271419.HAA24567@dm.cobaltmicro.com>, "David S. Miller" writes : +----- | Definately not! But if flush() was appended to the structure, then | people had only to recompile their drivers and all would be fine. So | there would be no silent failures in that scheme. | ... | So please explain where the benefit of placing flush() in the middle | is? | | So that people don't "only recompile their drivers" and the driver | code actually get updated and fixes done by or sent to the maintainer! +--->8
The point that's apparently being missed by most people is that a working flush method is needed to fix a serious bug in NFS (data loss when a file is closed and an error occurs during the final write). The fix is that you flush first and report the error then, because it's too late if you find the error during the actual close.
So all drivers should be updated to have a *working* flush() (a null pointer accomplishes nothing, it leaves NFS still broken). Linus chose to force this by putting flush() where it would cause serious breakage for drivers not aware of it, to force those drivers to be updated.
-- brandon s. allbery [os/2][linux][solaris][japh] allbery@kf8nh.apk.net system administrator [WAY too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu electrical and computer engineering KF8NH carnegie mellon university
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