Re: [PATCH v2 1/6] sysv/linux: Rename alpha functions to be alpha specific

[Zack Weinberg <zackw at panix dot com>]

On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 1:04 PM Alistair Francis <alistair23@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Yes, I understand that, but the definition of the 32-bit-time_t struct
> > timeval is
> >
> >   struct __timeval32 {
> >      __time32_t tv_sec;
> >      __suseconds_t tv_usec;
> >   };
>
> This is what the Alpha specific calls use.
> The generic one uses (the name is confusing, I thought I had changed it)
>
> struct __timeval32
> {
>   long tv_sec;         /* Seconds.  */
>   long tv_usec;        /* Microseconds.  */
> };
>
> This is because, as I mentioned earlier, that the kernel expects the
> time to be the wordsize, regardless of the time_t size (except for
> Alpha).

I think that's profoundly wrong.  I think we should be using a
definition along the lines of

struct __timeval32 {
    __time32_t tv_sec;
    __suseconds32_t tv_usec;
};

on all architectures, with all necessary variation handled within the
definitions of __time32_t and __suseconds32_t.  That way it can all
live in bits/typesizes.h which has to be system-specific regardless.

Please consider this a sustained objection to the entire patchset, not
just this one patch, unless you can come back with a convincing reason
why the above is not possible or would actually make life more
complicated.

(Incidentally, since it is probably going to come up yet again if we
proceed down this path, I still believe that the specification of
`long tv_nsec` in struct timespec is a defect in C11 and POSIX and we
should ignore both standards and use a typedef name for it.)

zw