Re: AUDIT: copy_from_user is a deathtrap.

[Ruth Ivimey-Cook]

On Wed, 22 May 2002, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
>Which name is 'good'/too short/too long is up to "big boys" to decide.
>I presume they know better, I don't hack on kernel day and night. They do.

Actually, in this case I would say it's the occasional hacker who is more 
likely to need good names, and consequently better placed to suggest them; the 
big boys presumably know this stuff so well it is a non-issue to them.

That said, I agree with Linus that copy_from_user et al is better than copyin, 
for reasons expressed earlier.

My work as a technical writer often results in comments like "I didn't 
understand that" or "no, it's not like that", when in fact the words are 
correct. I still take such reports seriously, though, as the point of writing
English is to convey meaning from you to someone's head, not to the paper.

All I can suggest about naming function calls is that consistency is generally 
better than point solutions.

Ruth

P.S. Might it be possible to avoid misuse of copy_ return values by changing 
the return type in some way?

-- 
Ruth Ivimey-Cook
Software engineer and technical writer.