Re: [PATCH] prctl: implement PR_GET_ENDIAN for all architectures

On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 12:12 AM, James Bottomley
[off-list ref] wrote:

On Tue, 2017-01-31 at 16:26 -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:

quoted

On Sat, 28 Jan 2017 12:13:10 +0100 Helge Deller [off-list ref]
wrote:

quoted

The prctl(PR_GET_ENDIAN) syscall was added to Kernel 2.6.18, but
implemented for PowerPC only. This trivial patch adds support for
this syscall for all other architectures.

Seems reasonable.  I guess.  Why is this needed?

I don't think it is other than for PPC.  If you're not variable endian
(which is only PPC to date), then you should know a priori what endian
you are from the #defines in userspace.

MIPS as well, but it seems strange to require the kernel to tell you
your endianness, when you can easily determine it yourself. Unless
there's something about this I don't understand.