Re: Should only __kernel_ino_t and friends be used in kernel includes?

Philip Blundell (Philip.Blundell@pobox.com)
Thu, 18 Dec 1997 22:45:00 +0000

>if one still needs to #include <linux/foobar.h> one can tune down
>namespace-pollution with #define __KERNEL_STRICT_NAMES. But then many
>include files fail to parse, because they use, for example `ino_t'.
>Shouldn't they use `__kernel_ino_t' instead?

Yes. The kernel includes have a lot of historical cruft, which is why
this problem arose. Before glibc's headers were completely separate from the
kernel's, I did some work cleaning up the <linux/*> ones, but it turned out to
be too hard at the time to fix things so that both glibc and libc5 could share
them without breaking anything.

Even when you've fixed these types, there are still often reasons why the
kernel headers are incompatible with glibc's. It would still be a useful
thing to do, but I'd be hesitant to do it before 2.2 is released.

p.