* David S. Miller <20040824103205.1ea9c999.davem@xxxxxxxxxx> 2004-08-24 10:32
> On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:04:42 +0200
> Thomas Graf <tgraf@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > * Herbert Xu <E1BzYMJ-000208-00@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 2004-08-24 20:16
> > > Please think about the meaning of the value. Is anyone going to have a
> > > queue
> > > bigger than 2^32?
> > >
> > > And if the answer is yes, then please use u64.
> >
> > Can you please explain the actual reason for using a fixed width
> > type when all existing numeric attributes use arch depedent types?
>
> Because otherwise things will break and explode for 32-bit
> binaries running on 64-bit kernels, which is the situation
> for the majority of userland on some platforms.
> Also, we eventually want to be able to transmit netlink
> messages over real networks to remote clients.
Which would be no problem as the size of the attribute is
available to userspace.
> Therefore, like any other real network protocol, we should
> use fixed sized types in the data.
I'm fine with that, as long as it's done the same way for all
attributes.
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