Hi Andrew,
hi lists readers,
On Sat, Apr 12, 2003 at 06:08:52PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> +gfp_repeat.patch
>
> Implement __GFP_REPEAT: so we can consolidate lots of alloc-with-retry code.
What about reworking the semantics of kmalloc()?
Many users of kmalloc get the flags and size reversed (major
source of hard to find bugs), so wouldn't it be simpler to have:
__kmalloc() /* The old kmalloc()*/
kmalloc() /* kmalloc(, GFP_KERNEL) */
kmalloc_user() /* kmalloc(, GFP_USER) */
kmalloc_dma() /* kmalloc(, GFP_KERNEL | GFP_DMA) */
kmalloc_dma_repeat() /* kmalloc(, GFP_KERNEL | GFP_DMA | __GFP_REPEAT) */
kmalloc_repeat() /* kmalloc(, GFP_KERNEL | __GFP_REPEAT) */
kmalloc_atomic() /* kmalloc(, GFP_ATOMIC) */
kmalloc_atomic_dma() /* kmalloc(, GFP_ATOMIC | GFP_DMA) */
an so on? These functions will of course just be static inline
wrappers for __kmalloc().
These functions above would just take a size and not confuse
programmers anymore (as prototypes with compatible arguments
usally do).
If it's just a matter of "nobody had the time do do it, yet",
than this is doable, if only slowly.
If this is considered nonsense, then I will shut-up.
What do you think?
Regards
Ingo Oeser
-
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/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 15 2003 - 22:00:28 EST