Re: Folios for 5.15 request - Was: re: Folio discussion recap -

[David Hildenbrand]

On 21.10.21 08:51, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 20, 2021 at 08:04:56PM +0200, David Hildenbrand wrote:
>> real): assume we have to add a field for handling something about anon
>> THP in the struct page (let's assume in the head page for simplicity).
>> Where would we add it? To "struct folio" and expose it to all other
>> folios that don't really need it because it's so special? To "struct
>> page" where it actually doesn't belong after all the discussions? And if
>> we would have to move that field it into a tail page, it would get even
>> more "tricky".
>>
>> Of course, we could let all special types inherit from "struct folio",
>> which inherit from "struct page" ... but I am not convinced that we
>> actually want that. After all, we're C programmers ;)
>>
>> But enough with another side-discussion :)
> 
> FYI, with my block and direct I/O developer hat on I really, really
> want to have the folio for both file and anon pages.  Because to make
> the get_user_pages path a _lot_ more efficient it should store folios.
> And to make that work I need them to work for file and anon pages
> because for get_user_pages and related code they are treated exactly
> the same.

Thanks, I can understand that. And IMHO that would be even possible with
split types; the function prototype will simply have to look a little
more fancy instead of replacing "struct page" by "struct folio". :)

-- 
Thanks,

David / dhildenb