# Re: \[PATCH 1/3\] ring-buffer: Add uname to match criteria for persistent ring buffer

- From: Linus Torvalds \<torvalds@linux-foundation.org\>
- Date: 2024-12-18 00:08:14 
- List: linux-trace-kernel
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-trace-kernel/2024/12/2864556
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/linux-trace-kernel/2024/12/2864148/t.md

```text
On Tue, 17 Dec 2024 at 15:32, Linus Torvalds
[ref] wrote:
>
> But if you look more closely, you'll see that the way the buffer is
> managed is actually not as a word array at all, but using
>
>         char *str, *end;
>
> instead of word pointers.

Oh, and in addition to the smaller-than-int types ('%c' and '%hd'
etc), pointers that get dereferenced also get written as a byte string
to that word array. There might be other cases too.

So it's really a fairly odd kind of "sometimes words, sometimes not"
array, with the size of the array given in words.

That binary printf is very strange.

               Linus
```