Re: Should struct inode be made available to userspace?

[viro _at_ xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 01:39:41PM -0500, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> viro _at_ parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk wrote:
> 
> >struct inode and structures containing it should not be used outside of 
> >kernel.
> >Moreover, foo_fs.h should be seriously trimmed down and everything _not_
> >useful outside of kernel should be taken into fs/foo/*; other kernel code
> >also doesn't give a fsck for that stuff, so it should be private to 
> >filesystem
> >instead of polluting include/linux/*.
> 
> Moving the definitions is fine, but some user programs, like backup 
> programs, do benefit from direct interpretation of the inode. Clearly 
> that's not a normal user program, but this information is not only 
> useful inside the kernel.

No, they do not.  They care about on-disk structures, not the in-core
ones fs driver happens to build.
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