Re: Please don't replace numeric parameter like 0444 with macro
[Posted August 3, 2016 by corbet]
| From: |
| Al Viro <viro-AT-ZenIV.linux.org.uk> |
| To: |
| Linus Torvalds <torvalds-AT-linux-foundation.org> |
| Subject: |
| Re: Please don't replace numeric parameter like 0444 with macro |
| Date: |
| Wed, 3 Aug 2016 01:42:26 +0100 |
| Message-ID: |
| <20160803004226.GF2356@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> |
| Cc: |
| Pavel Machek <pavel-AT-ucw.cz>, Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh-AT-linuxfoundation.org>, Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens-AT-de.ibm.com>, Baole Ni <baolex.ni-AT-intel.com>, Russell King - ARM Linux <linux-AT-armlinux.org.uk>, "linux-arm-kernel-AT-lists.infradead.org" <linux-arm-kernel-AT-lists.infradead.org>, Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel-AT-vger.kernel.org>, chuansheng.liu-AT-intel.com |
| Archive‑link: | |
Article |
On Tue, Aug 02, 2016 at 04:58:29PM -0400, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> [ So I answered similarly to another patch, but I'll just re-iterate
> and change the subject line so that it stands out a bit from the
> millions of actual patches ]
>
> On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 1:42 PM, Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz> wrote:
> >
> > Everyone knows what 0644 is, but noone can read S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR |
> > S_IRCRP | S_IROTH (*). Please don't do this.
>
> Absolutely. It's *much* easier to parse and understand the octal
> numbers, while the symbolic macro names are just random line noise and
> hard as hell to understand. You really have to think about it.
>
> So we should rather go the other way: convert existing bad symbolic
> permission bit macro use to just use the octal numbers.
>
> The symbolic names are good for the *other* bits (ie sticky bit, and
> the inode mode _type_ numbers etc), but for the permission bits, the
> symbolic names are just insane crap. Nobody sane should ever use them.
> Not in the kernel, not in user space.
Except that you are inviting the mixes like S_IFDIR | 17 /* oops, should've
been 017, or do we spell it 0017? */ that way. I certainly agree that this
patch series had been a huge pile of manure, but "let's convert it in other
direction" is inviting pretty much the same thing, with lovely potential for
typos, etc.
