Re: [PATCH man-pages v4] madvise.2: add MADV_GUARD_INSTALL, MADV_GUARD_REMOVE description

[Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1353 bytes --]

Hi Vlastimil, Lorenzo,

On Thu, Dec 05, 2024 at 09:43:09PM +0100, Vlastimil Babka wrote:
> >> > +If the region maps memory pages they will be cleared as part of the operation,
> >> > +though if
> >>
> >> Hm this reads a bit ambiguous. One could read it as the memory pages are
> >> being cleared, but it's the page tables.
> > 
> > This was really hard to word, because you don't want to say unmapped, and saying
> > 'clearing page tables' or 'zapping' is clear to us but not necessarily to a
> > reader. 'Clearing mapping' makes it ambiguous vs. munmap(), etc. etc.
> 
> Maybe saying "removed" instead of "cleared" would be better?
> 
> Anyway, I don't want to cause bikeshedding, so in any case:

I would actually like you to bikeshed.  :-)
These wording issues tend to be important, and finding the right wording
is worth the bikeshedding.

On the other hand, sometimes we just don't have ideas, and merging and
later fixing is also okay.

> 
> Reviewed-by: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@suse.cz>

Thanks!

Have a lovely night!
Alex

> 
> > But you want to make it clear (no pun intended) that anon pages, if there's any
> > data, it's probably lost. So I think this is a distinction that doesn't matter.
> > 
> > Will revisit once we support file-backed mappings.
> > 
> 

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 833 bytes --]