# Re: \[RFC PATCH net-next 0/4\] rhashtable: length helper for rhashtable and rhltable

- From: Pedro Tammela \<hidden\>
- Date: 2023-06-09 18:13:47 
- List: netdev
- Page: https://ratatoskr.run/netdev/2023/06/11263352
- Thread: https://ratatoskr.run/netdev/2023/06/11263311/t.md

```text
On 09/06/2023 14:36, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> On Fri,  9 Jun 2023 12:13:28 -0300 Pedro Tammela wrote:
>> Whenever someone wants to retrieve the total number of elements in a
>> rhashtable/rhltable it needs to open code the access to 'nelems'.
>> Therefore provide a helper for such operation and convert two accesses as
>> an example.
>
> IMHO read of nelems is much more readable than len().

For the case of rhltable it requires:
	atomic_read(rhltable->rt.nelems);

Which feels like it defeats the purpose of the dedicated rhltable type in the first place.
But I must admit that there are no use cases in-tree AFAIK.

Another point is that having this sort of helper also conveys that it's OK for a consumer to query this value at any time.

> I mean the name of the helper is not great. > IDK what length of a hashtable is. Feels like a Python-ism.

Well 'length' has been the term used in a few languages (Python, Rust, Go, etc...) so it felt the most fitting. If you have any suggestions in mind, do tell; Some that crossed my mind were:
- count
- size
- elems
- num


```