Because the programmer didn't want to think one second longer about
wether 6, 7 or 8 would be enough.
This is a good thing. Suppose you declare it [8], and minor/majors get
bumped to 16 bits (*). Now the max length of %02x is not 2, but 4. So
you would be overflowing the buffer (by one byte) when this called
(rare) if you have devices in the 4-hex-digit-range (rare).
In short you'd have a bug that would show up only every once a year
somewhere around the globe..... Trust me, Linux is as stable as it is
because in lots of places we don't save one or two bytes, but take a
safe margin.
I find a comment
/* Currently only 6 bytes of this buffer are really used */
just fine. But please keep the safe margin in the declaration.
(*) In this case, it's pretty realistic that we will bump device
numbers a bunch of bits in the near future. However, you should
be prepared for the unexpected.
-- ** R.E.Wolff@BitWizard.nl ** http://www.BitWizard.nl/ ** +31-15-2137555 ** *-- BitWizard writes Linux device drivers for any device you may have! --* * Never blow in a cat's ear because if you do, usually after three or * * four times, they will bite your lips! And they don't let go for at * * least a minute. -- Lisa Coburn, age 9- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/