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Subjectsignalfd_siginfo field names -- revisited
Hi Davide,

(We started discussing this quite a while back, and you then seemed
positively disposed to my idea below, but then holidays intervened, so I'm
resending this slightly revised version of my earlier mail.)

The signalfd_siginfo structure is defined as:

struct signalfd_siginfo { /* Analog in siginfo_t */
uint32_t signo; /* si_signo */
int32_t err; /* si_errno */
int32_t code; /* si_code */
uint32_t pid; /* si_pid */
uint32_t uid; /* si_uid */
int32_t fd; /* si_fd */
uint32_t tid; /* si_tid */
uint32_t band; /* si_band */
uint32_t overrun; /* si_overrun */
uint32_t trapno; /* si_trapno */
int32_t status; /* si_status */
int32_t svint; /* si_int */
uint64_t svptr; /* si_ptr */
uint64_t utime; /* si_utime */
uint64_t stime; /* si_stime */
uint64_t addr; /* si_addr */
uint28_t pad[X]; /* Pad size to 128 bytes (allow space
additional fields in the future) */
};

I think these field names are a little unfortunate -- e.g., si_errno --> err.

The reason they're unfortunate is that it makes it difficult to grep source
code for related fields -- e.g., I might be interested in the "errno"
fields that appear both in siginfo_t structures and in signalfd_siginfo
structures, but these renamings make it very difficult to grep for
instances in both of these structures.

At the moment, this problem only affects kernel source code, but of course
if the kernel definition is carried through to glibc, then userland
programs will similarly be difficult to grep for fields that are related.

I think it would be better if the fields in the signalfd_siginfo
structure were named as follows:

struct signalfd_siginfo {
uint32_t fdsi_signo;
int32_t fdsi_errno;
int32_t fdsi_code;
uint32_t fdsi_pid;
uint32_t fdsi_uid;
int32_t fdsi_fd;
uint32_t fdsi_tid;
uint32_t fdsi_band;
uint32_t fdsi_overrun;
uint32_t fdsi_trapno;
int32_t fdsi_status;
int32_t fdsi_int;
uint64_t fdsi_ptr;
uint64_t fdsi_utime;
uint64_t fdsi_stime;
uint64_t fdsi_addr;
uint28_t pad[];
};

Then one could grep for "si_errno" and find instances in both structures.

(I realize that one could paper over this issue by just making the change
in glibc, but of course it would be better to have the kernel and glibc
definitions be consistent.)

Making this change would of course not break anything in terms of
ABI compatibility.

What do you think about making this change?

Cheers,

Michael


--
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7

Want to help with man page maintenance? Grab the latest tarball at
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/
read the HOWTOHELP file and grep the source files for 'FIXME'.

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