# Re: New syscall: leftpad()

- From: Richard Weinberger \<hidden\>
- Date: 2016-04-01 08:06:14 
- List: linux-api
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-api/2016/04/4720286
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-api/2016/03/4720029/t.md

```text
Am 01.04.2016 um 01:36 schrieb Randy Dunlap:
> Please be more careful in your description...

I'm very sorry. Will do a v2 soon. ;-)

> On 03/31/16 15:33, Richard Weinberger wrote:
>> Recent happenings in the node.js community showed how fragile software is when
>> it comes to dependencies of fundamental algorithms like leftpad[1].
>> A node.js package which provided ledpad vanished and broke a lot of software.
> 
>                                    leftpad
> 
>> This raised our attention and we came to the conclusion that it is the kernel's
>> job to provide such functionality such that node.js based applications can in future
>> rely in Linux's "don't break userspace" rule.
>> We hope that glibc and Andoid's bionic will soon offer wrapper functions for this
> 
>                          Android's
> 
>> new leftpad system call.
>> We put leftpad into the kernel not only because of Linux's stable ABI,
>> also for performance reasons.
>> As everyone knows, within the kernel everything is faster and better.
>> Leftpad has millions of users, so it has to be as fast as possible.
>> This new system call will also help making services like left-pad.io[2]
>> faster and more reliable. If the leftpad() system call gets adopted by a wider user base
>> it might also make sense to add a generic npm() system call which acts like ioctl()
>> where kernel modules can register new functions that are often used by node.js.
>> Such functions might be, is_array(), is_int(), etc.
> 
> 

Thanks,
//richard
```