On 04/21/2014 08:46 PM, Rich Felker wrote: > On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 08:32:44PM +0200, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote: >> On 04/21/2014 06:10 PM, Rich Felker wrote: >>> I'm well aware of that. The problem is that the proposed API is using >>> the two-letter abbreviation FD, which ALWAYS means file descriptor and >>> NEVER means file description (in existing usage) to mean file >>> description. That's what's wrong. >> >> So, can you *please* answer this question: what do you call (i.e., >> what everyday technical language term do use for) the thing >> that sits between a file descriptor and an i-node? >> >> (Please don't say 'struct file' -- that is not is an implementation >> detail, and does not qualify as the kind of term that I could use >> when documenting this feature in man pages.) > > "Open file description". Oh! I didn't realize we agreed :-). >> POSIX uses (or invented, I am not sure which) the term file description >> for a good reason: it is unambiguous, and therefore precise. I do agree >> that there's a risk of confusion between 'open file descriptor" and >> 'and file description'--it's the same kind of risk as between English >> terms such as 'arbitrator' and 'arbitration' (and any number of other >> examples), and as language speakers we deal with this every day. > > There's not a problem when the full word is used. On the other hand, > if you use "arb" as an abbreviation for "arbitration" in a context > where it was already universally understood as meaning "arbitrator", > that would be a big problem. > > Likewise the problem here isn't that "open file description" is a bad > term. It's that using "FD" to mean "[open] file description" is > utterly confusing, even moreso than just making up a new completely > random word. Ohh -- I had thought you a problem not just with "FD" but also "(open) file description". >>>> 2) The new API constants (F_SETLKP, F_SETLKPW, F_GETLKP) have names >>>> that are visually very close to the traditional POSIX lock names >>>> (F_SETLK, F_SETLKW, F_GETLK). That's an accident waiting to happen >>>> when someone mistypes in code and/or misses such a misttyping >>>> when reading code. That really must be fixed. >>> >>> I agree, but I don't think making it worse is a solution. >> >> I don't agree that it's making it worse. The real problem here is >> that people use no good unambiguous term for the thing between a file >> descriptor and an inode. POSIX provides us with a solution that may >> not seem perfect, but it is unambiguous, and I think it might feel >> more comfortable if we used it often enough. > > I would like to see it used more too, and in particular, I think it > belongs in the documentation for these new locking interfaces. But > that still doesn't answer the question of what to call them (the > macros) unless you want: > > F_OPEN_FILE_DESCRIPTION_GETLK > F_OPEN_FILE_DESCRIPTION_SETLK > F_OPEN_FILE_DESCRIPTION_SETLKW Or just 'F_OFD_*'? > Perhaps "OP" (for open-private, i.e. private to the particular open) > would be a sensible choice; OTOH people are likely to misread it as > OPeration. The general principle I have in mind though is that it > might be nice to highlight the word "open" in "open file description" (Fair enough.) > since it (1) contrasts with file descriptor, despite file descriptors > also dealing with open files, and (2) contrasts well with legacy fcntl > locks, which are (this is the whole bug) associated with the > underlying file and not the open file description. Makes sense to me. (We are in more agreement that I realized.) Cheers, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
