On Fri, 21 Jul 2023 17:17:24 +0000
Nadav Amit [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

I also added a "is_freed" field that is part of the union and is set if
list elements have content. Note, since the union was criticized before, I
will state the entire purpose of doing this patch set is to save memory.
This structure will be used for every event file. What's the point of
getting rid of dentries if we are replacing it with something just as big?
Anyway, struct dentry does the exact same thing!  

Hey, don’t shoot me…

 ;-)

[And admittedly, I didn’t review the whole series after v1.]

I understand your position, but I think that at least is_freed should not
be in the union, and you can just put it after umode_t.

Even for the matter of size, it should not matter in most architectures
since umode_t is 16-bit, as natural alignment is at least 32-bits.

My new code I'm working on removes the umode_t and will require this then.
I rather have that part tested before adding other drastic changes.

-- Steve

[ And “bool" is clearer type for is_freed. ]