On Sat, 2007-11-03 at 01:21 +0000, Thiemo Seufer wrote: > Thayne Harbaugh wrote: > > There are several things that I'd like to see addressed in linux-user. > > Some of these are to fix bugs, some are to make qemu linux-user more > > like the Linux kernel, some are to make the internal qemu interfaces > > more consistent. > > > > An internal coding practice that is being addressed bit-by-bit is that > > of managing the interface between the host and the target. Currently > > this is a bit sloppy and inconsistent (some of which I've contributed > > to). There are examples of using target addresses for host pointers and > > host errnos for target errnos, using different types between target and > > host that don't sign-extend properly, as well as other things. This > > causes compiler warnings to actual run-time bugs. Currently I'm > > reviewing all of the linux-user code (mostly syscall.c) to fix these > > inconsistencies. I will be writing developer documentation describing > > the coding practices that should govern the target/host interface and > > submitting patches for the fixes. > > > > As obvious as it may seem I'll re-state that the linux-user emulation is > > emulating the Linux kernel (duh!). There are portions of qemu > > linux-user that are even excerpted directly from the Linux kernel. > > Consequently it is useful for internal qemu data and functions to > > closely mimic the kernel for best code sharing. There are also > > advantages to even structuring qemu directly and file organization in > > similar divisions, groupings and locations. Some of this organization > > might lead to good division so that other user/kernel divisions are > > cleaner (different kernel versions, other OSes - darwin-user and > > others). > > > > Internal qemu interfaces are consistent - except when they aren't. This > > causes coding errors when passing target and host arguments or return > > codes. I'll be documenting the coding practices as well as submitting > > patches to make these consistent. (That sounds a bit redundant with > > other things I've mentioned). > > > > I have about 40 patches already worked up that do this. Some of those > > patches might be broken up smaller. The qemu that we've been working > > with is nearly rock solid (still a few more bugs being wrung out). It > > can nearly build an entire Debian arm distribution for an arm target > > being hosted on x86_64. We're quite excited to get our patches upstream > > so that others can benefit and to ease our maintenance overhead. We're > > also turning our focus to PPC and other archs. > > > > Please let me know if you support the general idea of the coding changes > > above: General clean-up, consistent target/host interfaces, file > > splitting/reorganizing, etc.. In the meantime I'll be putting together > > the developer documentation/coding guidelines for review. > > FWIW, I agree with everything you said above.
I agree too. Code cleanup and sanitization is needed there. I'm just reserved about the code splitting point: as for the vl.h splitting, it should not lead to get files with only a single or two small function inside. But it could be great to group the syscalls by categories, or so. For example, putting all POSIX compliant syscalls in a single file and using a syscall table could make quite easy to develop a BSD-user target (I did this in the past, not in Qemu though...). POSIX compliant interfaces can mostly be shared with Linux ones and a lot of other syscalls are common to the 3 BSD flavors (Net, Open and Free..). Being able to add a BSD target sharing the same code would be a proof the code is flexible and well organized; I guess large parts of the Darwin user target could also be merged with a FreeBSD user target... Just my few cents ideas, don't say it has to be implemented soon, just think keeping those long-term goals in mind may help having a flexible and clean implementation... -- J. Mayer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Never organized