On Tue, Apr 24, 2007 at 04:59:47PM +1000, Neil Brown wrote: > On Tuesday April 24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > + write_begin: This is intended as a replacement for prepare_write. Called > > + by the generic buffered write code to ask the filesystem to prepare > > + to write len bytes at the given offset in the file. flags is a > > field > > + for AOP_FLAG_xxx flags, described in include/linux/mm.h. > > Putting "This is intended as a replacement.." there sees a bit > dangerous. It could well accidentally remain when the documentation > for prepare_write gets removed. I would make it a separate paragraph > and flesh it out. And include text from prepare_write before that > gets removed. > > write_begin: > This is intended as a replacement for prepare_write. The key > differences being that: > - it returns a locked page (in *pagep) rather than > being given a pre-locked page: > - it can pass arbitrary state to write_end rather than > having to hide stuff in some filesystem-internal > data structure > - The (largely undocumented) flags option. > > Called by the generic bufferred write code to ask an > address_space to prepare to write len bytes at the given > offset in the file. > > The address_space should check that the write will be able to > complete, by allocating space if necessary and doing any other > internal housekeeping. If the write will update parts of any > basic-blocks on storage, then those blocks should be pre-read > (if they haven't been read already) so that the updated blocks > can be written out properly. > The possible flags are listed in include/linux/fs.h (not > mm.h) and include > AOP_FLAG_UNINTERRUPTIBLE: > It is unclear how this should be used. No > current code handles it.
Yeah, reasonable points. I'll do an incremental patch to clean up some of the documentation. BTW. AOP_FLAG_UNINTERRUPTIBLE can be used by filesystems to avoid an initial read or other sequence they might be using to handle the case of a short write. ecryptfs uses it, others can too. For buffered writes, this doesn't get passed in (unless they are coming from kernel space), so I was debating whether to have it at all. However, in the previous API, _nobody_ had to worry about short writes, so this flag means I avoid making an API that is fundamentally less performant in some situations. > > (together with the rest...) > > + > > + The filesystem must return the locked pagecache page for the caller > > + to write into. > > + > > + A void * may be returned in fsdata, which then gets passed into > > + write_end. > > + > > + Returns < 0 on failure, in which case all cleanup must be done and > > + write_end not called. 0 on success, in which case write_end must > > + be called. > > > As you are not including perform_write in the current patchset, maybe > it is best not to include the documentation yet either? Right, missed that, thanks! Nick - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
