Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752230AbbHEIsj (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Aug 2015 04:48:39 -0400 Received: from mail-wi0-f172.google.com ([209.85.212.172]:32870 "EHLO mail-wi0-f172.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751588AbbHEIsg (ORCPT ); Wed, 5 Aug 2015 04:48:36 -0400 Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2015 10:48:26 +0200 From: Ingo Molnar To: Brian Gerst Cc: the arch/x86 maintainers , Linux Kernel Mailing List , "H. Peter Anvin" , Denys Vlasenko , Andy Lutomirski , Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/7] x86/vm86: Move vm86 fields out of thread_struct Message-ID: <20150805084826.GA23169@gmail.com> References: <1437354550-25858-1-git-send-email-brgerst@gmail.com> <1437354550-25858-5-git-send-email-brgerst@gmail.com> <20150721071151.GA8367@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1420 Lines: 35 * Brian Gerst wrote: > > Btw., the variable names here are crazy. I had to look twice to realize that > > we have 'v86' and 'vm86' which are two different things. > > > > Also, vm86plus_struct variables and fields are named wildly inconsistently: > > sometimes it's 'vm86.vm86_info', sometimes it's 'v86', sometimes 'user'. Ugh. > > > > Other fields have naming inconsistencies as well: for example we have > > thread.vm86->vm86plus.vm86dbg_active. 'vm86' is repeated _three_ times in that > > name, for no good reason. > > > > So please clean up the naming to make this all easier to read. Only the > > highest level field should have 'vm86' in it - all subsequent fields will > > inherit that name one way or another. > > Some of these field names are visible to userspace and can't change. That's a misconception: bits in the uapi headers can be renamed just fine. The kernel ABI is that _semantics_ that user-space code relies on must not change. Cleaning up field names is absolutely legit to do, and we've done it numerous times in the past. Especially where they are so confusing and inconsistent as in the vm86 code. Thanks, Ingo -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/