Re: flag day for 64-bit?

[Roland McGrath]

> Roland McGrath <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > I'm not
> > sure whether we ever discussed the API (source) compatibility
> > question, which is to say the incompatible change of the arguments to
> > io_seek et al from off_t to loff_t, but perhaps we (rightly) decided
> > that would be just fine since compiler complaints at the recompile
> > would cite where to insert the `l's.
> 
> I think the Right Thing is actually to have the argument remain off_t,
> and change off_t to be 64 bits.

I don't know what definitions you are using these days.  But
the term What We Are Doing is presently defined as judicious
source compatibility with the GNU/Linux interface.  That is,
the split 32/64 flavor with -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=32 the default.

Since that is what we already have in libc (and have had
since the first go-round on this when we decided this was
the right thing to do and Mark Kettenis did all the
necessary libc changes to give us the current libc ABI),
your suggestion would break all ABIs and require recompiling
everything in the system, not just libc and hurd-specific stuff.