Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 6 Nov 2007 01:38:22 +0200 | From | "Ahmed S. Darwish" <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] Smackv10: Smack rules grammar + their stateful parser |
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On 11/5/07, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote: > > > On Mon, 5 Nov 2007, Ahmed S. Darwish wrote: > > > On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 12:28:48PM +0000, Pavel Machek wrote: > > > > > > Can we avoid string parsers in the kernel? > > > > > > > Ok, Could someone suggest a better idea please ?. > > I personally think string parsers are *much* better than the alternatives > (which basically boil down to nasty binary interfaces) > > > I thought about packing the rules in a structure and sending > > it over an ioctl() command. Is this applicable ? > > That's *MUCH* worse. > > Strings are nice. They aren't that complex, and as long as it's not a > performance-critical area, there are basically no downsides. > > Binary structures and ioctl's are *much* worse. They are totally > undebuggable with generic tools (think "echo" or "strace"), and they are a > total nightmare to parse across architectures and pointer sizes. > > So the rule should be: always use strings if at all possible and relevant. > If the data is fundamentally binary, it shouldn't be re-coded to ascii (no > real advantage), but if the data is "stringish", and there aren't big > performance issues, then keep it as strings. >
Thanks a lot for such a kind advice. I'll keep that in my mind.
Regards,
-- Ahmed S. Darwish Homepage: http://darwish.07.googlepages.com Blog: http://darwish-07.blogspot.com - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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