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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Message-Id: <199510261811.LAA21395@phaeton.artisoft.com>
Subject: Re: SYSCALL IDEAS [Was: cvs commit: src/sys/kern sysv_msg.c sysv_sem.c sysv_shm.c]
To: bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans)
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 11:11:23 -0700 (MST)
Cc: dyson@freefall.freebsd.org, terry@lambert.org,
        CVS-commiters@freefall.freebsd.org, bde@freefall.freebsd.org,
        bde@zeta.org.au, cvs-sys@freefall.freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org,
        swallace@ece.uci.edu
In-Reply-To: <199510260321.NAA02246@godzilla.zeta.org.au> from "Bruce Evans" at Oct 26, 95 01:21:32 pm
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> >2^63 -- the highest bit still being reserved for error return on lseek
> >and for indirect block identification.
> 
> The highest bit is not reserved for error return on lseek.  Only one value
> ((off_t)-1) is reserved.

Sorry; "most significant bit".  Or if you prefer "sign bit".  There, now
the location of the bit itself is sufficiently confused.  8-).

At least the number of non-sign bits is invariant, if discontiguous.

> >The only value of quad is as an annoyance and as a spur to further
> 
> It is expedient.  Would you prefer off_t to be double?  (That's in the
> ABI; inside the kernel and on disks offsets should be represented in
> an efficient way, perhaps as quads.)

I would prefer it to be whatever unit was used for stack alignment.  In
this case, int32 on a 386.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.