Re: [PATCHv3 00/24] ILP32 support in ARM64

[Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>]

On 02/11/2015 11:57 AM, H.J. Lu wrote:
>>>> trivially satisfied if you consider x32 and x86_64 separate
>>>> compilation environments, but it's not related to the core issue: that
>>>> the definition of timespec violates core (not obscure) requirements of
>>>> both POSIX and C11. At the time you were probably unaware of the C11
>>>> requirement. Note that it's a LOT harder to effect change in the C
>>>> standard, so even if the Austin Group would be amenable to changing
>>>> the requirement for timespec to allow something like nseconds_t,
>>>> getting WG14 to make this change to work around a Linux/glibc mistake
>>>> does not sound practical.
>>>
>>> That is very unfortunate.  I consider it is too late for x32 to change.
>>
>> Why? It's hardly an incompatible ABI change, as long as the
>> kernel/libc fills the upper bits (for old programs that read them
>> based on the old headers) when structs are read from the kernel to the
>> application, and ignores the upper bits (potentially set or left
>> uninitialized by the application) when strings are passed from
>> userspace to the kernel. Newly built apps using the struct definition
>> with 32-bit tv_nsec would need new libc to ensure that the high bits
>> aren't interpreted, but this could be handled by symbol versioning.
>>
>
> We have considered this option.  But since kernel wouldn't change
> tv_nsec/tv_usec handling just for x32, it wasn't selected.
>

Did anyone *ask* the kernel people (e.g. hpa)?

--Andy