Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261797AbVAJAoZ (ORCPT ); Sun, 9 Jan 2005 19:44:25 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261654AbVAJAoY (ORCPT ); Sun, 9 Jan 2005 19:44:24 -0500 Received: from mailout.stusta.mhn.de ([141.84.69.5]:786 "HELO mailout.stusta.mhn.de") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S261839AbVAJAnU (ORCPT ); Sun, 9 Jan 2005 19:43:20 -0500 Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 01:43:13 +0100 From: Adrian Bunk To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Arjan van de Ven , Kernel Mailing List , Andrew Morton , Richard Henderson Subject: Re: removing bcopy... because it's half broken Message-ID: <20050110004313.GB1483@stusta.de> References: <20050109192305.GA7476@infradead.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040907i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1607 Lines: 49 On Sun, Jan 09, 2005 at 12:19:09PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > On Sun, 9 Jan 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > > > > Instead of fixing this inconsistency, I decided to remove it entirely, > > explicit memcpy() and memmove() are prefered anyway (welcome to the 1990's) > > and nothing in the kernel is using these functions, so this saves code size > > as well for everyone. > > The problem is that at least some gcc versions would historically generate > calls to "bcopy" on alpha for structure assignments. Maybe it doesn't any > more, and no such old gcc versions exist any more, but who knows? >... include/asm-alpha/string.h says: /* * GCC of any recent vintage doesn't do stupid things with bcopy. * EGCS 1.1 knows all about expanding memcpy inline, others don't. * * Similarly for a memset with data = 0. */ And Arjan's patch is pretty low-risk: If it breaks on any architecture with any supported compiler (>= 2.95), it will break at compile time and there will pretty fast be reports of this breakage in which case it would be easy to revert his patch. > Linus cu Adrian -- "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed - 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/