Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 9 Mar 2006 17:00:50 -0800 | From | Greg KH <> | Subject | Re: Revenge of the sysfs maintainer! (was Re: [PATCH 8 of 20] ipath - sysfs support for core driver) |
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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,
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