> But if anybody is really worried about running out of f_mode bits, we > could almost certainly turn the existing > > unsigned int f_flags; > > into a bitfield, and make it be something like > > unsigned int f_flags:26, f_special:6; I just saw this now. Two points I would like to keep you to keep mind. I've already mentiond that I've freed up 5 fmode bits so it's not that we're in immediate danger of running out. Especially since I added f_ops_flags which contains all flags that are static, i.e., never change and can simply live in the file operations struct and aren't that performance sensitive. I shrunk struct file to three cachelines. And in fact, we have 8 bytes to use left since I removed f_version. So it really wouldn't be a problem to simply add a separate u32 f_special member into struct file without growing it and still leaving a 4 byte hole if it ever comes to that.
