On Mon, Nov 1, 2021 at 4:20 PM Jens Axboe <axboe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Yes, probably safer just to make bdev_nr_bytes() return sector_t as
> well, even if loff_t isn't strictly wrong.
Well, that would actually change the sign of some of the existing
comparisons. Possibly changing their meaning entirely..
So having 'loff_t' being signed may be an odd choice for a byte size,
but it is what it is. At least the current set of cleanups seemed to
keep the type logic the same when it changed i_size_read() to be
bdev_nr_bytes() instead.
Changing it to 'sector_t' not only doesn't make conceptual sense when
it's a byte count, it might also be dangerous.
So my reaction was really that it wasn't obvious that bdev_nr_bytes()
did the shift in the right type.. It does happen to do that, but
historically sector_t was the smaller type.
Linus
