Message-ID: <49809A65.2090501@kernel.org>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:48:21 -0800
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@kernel.org>
Organization: Linux Kernel Organization, Inc.
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To: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
CC: Jaswinder Singh Rajput <jaswinder@kernel.org>,
       Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
       Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>,
       Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
       Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
       Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org>,
       Jaswinder Singh Rajput <jaswinderrajput@gmail.com>,
       "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>
Subject: Re: [mingo@elte.hu: [git pull] headers_check fixes]
References: <20090127222825.GA27097@elte.hu> <alpine.LFD.2.00.0901271441280.3123@localhost.localdomain> <1233106614.3256.6.camel@localhost.localdomain> <200901281337.52294.arnd@arndb.de>
In-Reply-To: <200901281337.52294.arnd@arndb.de>
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Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> 
> For the specific x86 swab code, that would certainly be the simplest
> way, user space should not be using those inline assemblies either
> way.
> 
> I think the more interesting question is whether we want to export
> *any* inline helpers that are not part of the ABI to user space.
> We already killed most of them (spinlocks, atomics, ...) and what
> remains is basically just the byteorder code. All that is required
> for the ABI is the information whether the system is big- or
> little-endian, but not all the rest.
> 

In general, no.  The byteswap API is a legacy exception.

	-hpa

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