libc6 and the Linux kernel

["Eloy A. Paris" <eparis@ven.ra.rockwell.com>]

Hi,

today I found why I was having so many problems when trying to port
the ncpfs utilities to libc6: the userland ncpfs utilities use some
data types like uid_t, gid_t, etc. that the kernel also uses.

Under libc5 these data types are of one size but under libc6 they have
a different size (for example uid_t is 2 bytes long in libc6 but 4
bytes long in libc6).

Since the kernel is using libc5 include files, the size of its
variables will be different from the size of variables of the same
type in the userland programs compiled for libc6.

I think I know how to fix userland programs to make them able to work
with both libc6 _and_ the kernel but my question is:

is this likely to change in the future? I mean, will the Linux kernel
use at some time in the future libc6 include files so the both the
kernel and the userland utilities share the same data types (and its
sizes)?

Thanks for helping me to understand this mess :-)

See ya!

E.-

-- 

Eloy A. Paris
Information Technology Department
Rockwell Automation de Venezuela
Telephone: +58-2-9432311 Fax: +58-2-9431645


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