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To: "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>
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Subject: Re: [RFC] generic device DMA implementation 
In-Reply-To: Message from "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com> 
   of "Fri, 06 Dec 2002 14:29:27 PST." <20021206.142927.88817589.davem@redhat.com> 
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Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 16:48:57 -0600
From: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@steeleye.com>
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davem@redhat.com said:
> It's like adding a new system call, and the same arguments apply.

> I don't want a 'flags' thing, because that tends to be the action
> which opens the flood gates for putting random feature-of-the-day new
> bits. 

I did think of this.  The flags are enums in include/linux/dma-mapping.h  In 
theory they can't be hijacked by an architecture without either changing this 
global header or exciting compiler warnings.

However, I can only see their being two types of drivers: those which do all 
the sync points and those which don't do any, so I can't see any reason for 
there to be any more than two such flags.

I also want an active discouragement from using the may return inconsistent 
API, and I think, given the general programmer predisposition not to want to 
type, that a long flag name (or a long routine name) does this.

I just don't like API names that look like

dma_alloc_may_be_inconsistent()

but if that's what it takes, I'll do it

James


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