Re: [PATCH v2 000/110] vfs: change inode->i_ino from unsigned long to u64

NeilBrown <[email protected]> Wed, 04 Mar 2026 17:26:59 +1100
Newsgroups gmane.linux.kernel.lsm,gmane.linux.file-systems,gmane.linux.kernel,gmane.linux.kernel.mm,gmane.comp.file-systems.ext4,gmane.linux.file-systems.f2fs,gmane.linux.nfs,gmane.linux.kernel.cifs,gmane.network.samba.internals,gmane.comp.file-systems.nilfs.user,gmane.linux.kernel.autofs,gmane.comp.file-systems.ceph.devel,gmane.comp.file-systems.coda.general,gmane.comp.file-systems.ecryptfs.general,gmane.linux.drivers.mtd,gmane.linux.file-systems.union,gmane.comp.security.apparmor,gmane.comp.freedesktop.amd-gfx,gmane.comp.video.dri.devel,gmane.linux.drivers.video-input-infrastructure,gmane.linux.network,gmane.linux.kernel.perf.user,gmane.linux.hams,gmane.linux.x25,gmane.linux.bluez.kernel,gmane.linux.can,gmane.linux.kernel.bpf
Message-ID <[email protected]> 
On Tue, 03 Mar 2026, Jeff Layton wrote:
> On Tue, 2026-03-03 at 10:55 +0000, David Howells wrote:
> > Jeff Layton <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> > > This version splits the change up to be more bisectable. It first adds a
> > > new kino_t typedef and a new "PRIino" macro to hold the width specifier
> > > for format strings. The conversion is done, and then everything is
> > > changed to remove the new macro and typedef.
> > 
> > Why remove the typedef?  It might be better to keep it.
> > 
> 
> Why? After this change, internel kernel inodes will be u64's -- full
> stop. I don't see what the macro or typedef will buy us at that point.

Implicit documentation?
ktime_t is (now) always s64, but we still keep the typedef;

It would be cool if we could teach vsprintf to understand some new
specifier to mean "kinode_t" or "ktime_t" etc.  But that would trigger
gcc warnings.

NeilBrown