From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from psmtp.com (na3sys010amx184.postini.com [74.125.245.184]) by kanga.kvack.org (Postfix) with SMTP id AE1066B0062 for ; Tue, 14 May 2013 11:04:16 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <5192523B.7030805@parallels.com> Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 19:03:23 +0400 From: Glauber Costa MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] return value from shrinkers References: <1368454595-5121-1-git-send-email-oskar.andero@sonymobile.com> In-Reply-To: <1368454595-5121-1-git-send-email-oskar.andero@sonymobile.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: To: Oskar Andero Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, Hugh Dickins , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Radovan Lekanovic , David Rientjes , Dave Chinner , Mel Gorman On 05/13/2013 06:16 PM, Oskar Andero wrote: > Hi, > > In a previous discussion on lkml it was noted that the shrinkers use the > magic value "-1" to signal that something went wrong. > > This patch-set implements the suggestion of instead using errno.h values > to return something more meaningful. > > The first patch simply changes the check from -1 to any negative value and > updates the comment accordingly. > > The second patch updates the shrinkers to return an errno.h value instead > of -1. Since this one spans over many different areas I need input on what is > a meaningful return value. Right now I used -EBUSY on everything for consitency. > > What do you say? Is this a good idea or does it make no sense at all? > > Thanks! > Right now me and Dave are completely reworking the way shrinkers operate. I suggest, first of all, that you take a look at that cautiously. On the specifics of what you are doing here, what would be the benefit of returning something other than -1 ? Is there anything we would do differently for a return value lesser than 1? So far, shrink_slab behaves the same, you are just expanding the test. If you really want to push this through, I would suggest coming up with a more concrete reason for why this is wanted. -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: email@kvack.org