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Date:   Tue, 18 Jul 2023 12:41:56 -0700
From:   Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
To:     Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>
Cc:     Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>, justinstitt@google.com,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>,
        Vladimir Oltean <olteanv@gmail.com>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>,
        Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>, netdev@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>,
        Nick Desaulniers <ndesaulniers@google.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] net: dsa: remove deprecated strncpy
Message-ID: <20230718124156.07632716@kernel.org>
In-Reply-To: <dbfb40d7-502e-40c0-bdaf-1616834b64e4@lunn.ch>
References: <20230718-net-dsa-strncpy-v1-1-e84664747713@google.com>
        <316E4325-6845-4EFC-AAF8-160622C42144@kernel.org>
        <20230718121116.72267fff@kernel.org>
        <dbfb40d7-502e-40c0-bdaf-1616834b64e4@lunn.ch>
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On Tue, 18 Jul 2023 21:31:04 +0200 Andrew Lunn wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 12:11:16PM -0700, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> > On Tue, 18 Jul 2023 11:05:23 -0700 Kees Cook wrote:  
> > > Honestly I find the entire get_strings API to be very fragile given
> > > the lack of passing the length of the buffer, instead depending on
> > > the string set length lookups in each callback, but refactoring that
> > > looks like a ton of work for an uncertain benefit.  
> > 
> > We have been adding better APIs for long term, and a print helper short
> > term - ethtool_sprintf(). Should we use ethtool_sprintf() here?  
> 
> I was wondering about that as well. There is no variable expansion in
> most cases, so the vsnprintf() is a waste of time.
> 
> Maybe we should actually add another helper:
> 
> ethtool_name_cpy(u8 **data, unsigned int index, const char *name);

I wasn't sure if vsnprintf() is costly enough to bother, but SG.

Probably without the "unsigned int index", since the ethtool_sprintf()
API updates the first argument for the caller.

> Then over the next decade, slowly convert all drivers to it. And then
> eventually replace the u8 with a struct including the length.
> 
> The netlink API is a bit better. It is one kAPI call which does
> everything, and it holds RTNL. So it is less likely the number of
> statistics will change between the calls into the driver.