Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2017 20:50:14 +0200 (CEST)
From: Miroslav Benes <mbenes@suse.cz>
To: Petr Mladek <pmladek@suse.com>
cc: Joe Lawrence <joe.lawrence@redhat.com>,
        Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com>, live-patching@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Jessica Yu <jeyu@redhat.com>,
        Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] livepatch: introduce shadow variable API
In-Reply-To: <20170719151951.GL32632@pathway.suse.cz>
Message-ID: <alpine.LSU.2.20.1707192048460.15946@pobox.suse.cz>
References: <1498664247-12296-1-git-send-email-joe.lawrence@redhat.com> <1498664247-12296-2-git-send-email-joe.lawrence@redhat.com> <20170714004149.6jgg4vxmjsotlkus@treble> <alpine.LSU.2.20.1707171732150.22628@pobox.suse.cz> <20170718130047.GG3393@pathway.suse.cz>
 <20170718193627.bzfgprzjjenvcgmc@redhat.com> <20170719151951.GL32632@pathway.suse.cz>
User-Agent: Alpine 2.20 (LSU 67 2015-01-07)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 1895
Lines: 56

On Wed, 19 Jul 2017, Petr Mladek wrote:

> On Tue 2017-07-18 15:36:27, Joe Lawrence wrote:
> > Who knew naming things was so difficult :)
> > 
> > There's been a bunch of feedback on terminology, so I'll just issue a
> > collective reply to Petr's last msg on the topic.  These were my
> > thoughts on naming clarification:
> > 
> >   v1,v2                                     v3
> >   --------------------------------------------------------------
> >   obj, original data                        obj, parent object
> >   num, numerical description of new data    id, data identifier
> >   new_data                                  data
> >   new_size                                  data_size
> 
> IMHO, "size" might be enough in the context when it is used.

I agree.

> > 
> > Miroslav also suggested additional text explaining the id / data
> > identifier field.  How about something like this:
> > 
> > ---
> > 
> > ================
> > Shadow Variables
> > ================
> > 
> > ...
> > 
> > A global, in-kernel hashtable associates parent pointers and a numeric
> > identifier with shadow variable data.
> 
> I would slightly reformulate the above sentece:
> 
> A global, in-kernel hashtable associates pointers to parent objects
> and a numeric identifier of the shadow data.
> 
> > Specifically, the parent pointer
> > serves as the hashtable key, while the numeric id further filters
> > hashtable queries.  The numeric identifier is a simple enumeration that
> > may be used to describe shadow variable versions (for stacking
> > livepatches), class or type (for multiple shadow variables per parent),
> > etc.  Multiple shadow variables may attach to the same parent object,
> > but their numeric identifier distinguises between them.

s/distinguises/distinguishes/
 
> Sounds good to me.

Yes, thanks for the paragraph. It sounds good combined with Petr's 
proposal.

Miroslav