Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> Grr. That may make sense on 32-bit architectures, but makes no sense
> what-so-ever on 64-bit ones.
>
> Why not just say that it's two "unsigned long" arguments, and split it by
> "sizeof unsigned long". And then, on 64-bit architectures, the high bits
> can be ignored. You can even get gcc to optimize it all away by doing
> something like
>
> #define HALF_LONG (BITS_IN_LONG / 2)
>
> offset = (((loff_t)high << HALF_LONG) << HALF_LONG) | low;
>
> and then gcc should automaticaly notice that shifting up that way is just
> a fancy way of saying "0", and ignore the high bits.
>
> How married are people to this crazy 2x "32 bits" model?
>
I certainly am *not* happy with it, and said so when it was first
posted. My main complaint with it is that it introduces yet another
special case in the kernel<->userspace ABI, because although we've had
this problem before, it has been hacked around a different way every time.
-hpa
--
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel. I don't speak on their behalf.
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