Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] man/man3/errno.3: Document EFTYPE error code

Alejandro Colomar <[email protected]> Mon, 29 Jun 2026 23:02:13 +0200
Newsgroups	org.kernel.vger.linux-api,org.kernel.vger.linux-man
Message-ID	<akLcqAykbOXmDJrg@devuan>
Hi Dorjoy,

On 2026-06-29T22:15:45+0600, Dorjoy Chowdhury wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The OPENAT2_REGULAR and EFTYPE changes are in the 7.2-rc1 now I
> believe. I am not sure if it's the right time to merge the man-page
> changes now.

Yes, it is.

> I also don't know the whole flow so I'm asking.

If it's in an -rc, and you believe there won't be significant changes
before release, we can merge the documentation already.  If there's any
last-minute change before the actual 7.2 release, just send some patch
fixing the documentation.

Please keep all the CCs when sending the patches, and send in reply to
the first message in this thread, so that it's easier to correlate them.
Please also include CC tags in the trailer of the commit message.

> Do both
> of these need to be added to glibc manually or do these get pulled in
> from the uapi headers of linux into glibc automatically?

I don't know about this; someone from glibc will have to comment.


Have a lovely night!
Alex

> 
> Regards,
> Dorjoy
> 
> On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 7:33 PM Alejandro Colomar <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Florian,
> >
> > On 2026-04-27T15:29:30+0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > > * Alejandro Colomar:
> > >
> > > > Hi Florian,
> > > >
> > > > On 2026-04-27T12:34:30+0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > > >> * Alejandro Colomar:
> > > >>
> > > >> > [CC += libc-alpha]
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Hi Dorjoy,
> > > >> >
> > > >> > On 2026-04-26T17:14:25+0600, Dorjoy Chowdhury wrote:
> > > >> >> Signed-off-by: Dorjoy Chowdhury <[email protected]>
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Thanks!
> > > >> >
> > > >> >  Reviewed-by: Alejandro Colomar <[email protected]>
> > > >> >
> > > >> > I will wait until glibc adds this error code to their <errno.h> before
> > > >> > applying the patch.  This means either you should write and send a patch
> > > >> > to glibc (if so, please CC me), or you should ask them to add it
> > > >> > themselves (if you're not comfortable writing glibc code).
> > > >>
> > > >> I'm not sure where this is coming from.
> > > >
> > > > Here's a link to the thread:
> > > > <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/[email protected]/T/>
> > > >
> > > >> POSIX says EFTYPE was rejected
> > > >> in favor of ENOTTY.
> > > >
> > > > Could you please share a link to that?
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, I guess ENOTTY would be inappropriate in this case.  Although
> > > > maybe a better error code could be devised; I don't know.  This is why
> > > > I wanted glibc involved in this discussion before this arrives to a
> > > > Linux release.  Thanks for the quick feedback!
> > >
> > > It's in the Rationale for System Interfaces:
> > >
> > > “
> > > [EFTYPE]
> > >     This error code was proposed in earlier proposals as "Inappropriate
> > >     operation for file type", meaning that the operation requested is
> > >     not appropriate for the file specified in the function call. This
> > >     code was proposed, although the same idea was covered by [ENOTTY],
> > >     because the connotations of the name would be misleading. It was
> > >     pointed out that the fcntl() function uses the error code [EINVAL]
> > >     for this notion, and hence all instances of [EFTYPE] were changed to
> > >     this code.
> > > ”
> > >
> > > I replied on linux-fsdevel, too.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > >
> > > (It would be nice to submit patches introducing new error codes to
> > > linux-api with a subject mentioning the error code.)
> >
> > Thanks!  I'll remember this advice for when receiving patches that add
> > error codes.
> >
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > > Florian
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Alex
> >
> > --
> > <https://www.alejandro-colomar.es>
> 

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