Shailabh wrote:

Perhaps I should use the the other ascii format for specifying cpumasks 
since its more amenable
to specifying an upper bound for the length of the ascii string and is 
more compact ?

Eh - basically - I don't have a strong opinion either way.

I have a slight esthetic preference toward using list of ranges format
from shell scripts and shell prompts, and using the 32-bit hex words
from C code:

	17-26,44-47		# shell - list of ranges
	0000f000,07fe0000	# C - 32-bit hex words

Since the primary interface you are working with is C code, that would
mean I'd slightly prefer the 32-bit hex word variant.

From what I've seen neither of the reasons you gave for preferring

the 32-bit hex word format are persuasive (even though they both
lead to the same conclusion as I preferred ;):

    Which is more compact depends on that particular bit pattern
    you need to represent.  See for example the examples above.

    The lack of a perfect upper bound on the list of ranges format
    is a theoretical problem that I have never seen in practice.
    Only pathological constructs exceed six ascii characters per
    set bit.

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