On Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 10:56 AM Alejandro Colomar (man-pages)
[off-list ref] wrote:

Hello Alexei,

On 4/24/21 1:20 AM, Alexei Starovoitov wrote:

quoted

Nack.
The man page should describe the kernel api the way it is in .h file.

Why?

Because man page must describe the linux uapi headers the way they
are installed in the system and not invent alternative implementations.
The users will include those .h with __u32 and will see them in their code.
Man page saying something else is a dangerous lie.

using uint32_t in every situation where __u32 is expected.  They're both
typedefs for the same basic type.

That's irrelevant. Languages like golang have their own bpf.h equivalent
that matches /usr/include/linux/bpf.h.

I can understand why Linux will keep using u32 types (and their __ user
space variants), but that doesn't mean user space programs need to use
the same type.

No one says that the users must use __u32. See golang example.
But if the users do #include <linux/bpf.h> they will get them and man page
must describe that.

If we have a standard syntax for fixed-width integral types (and for
anything, actually), the manual pages should probably follow it,
whenever possible.

Absolutely not. linux man page must describe linux.