On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 09:49:41AM -0700, Dan Williams wrote:
Lukas Wunner wrote:
But I want to raise awareness that the inability to hide empty attribute groups feels awkward.
That is fair, it was definitely some gymnastics to only change user visible behavior for new "invisible aware" attribute groups that opt-in while leaving all the legacy cases alone.
The concern is knowing when it is ok to call an is_visible() callback with a NULL @attr argument, or knowing when an empty array actually means "hide the group directory".
We could add a sentinel value to indicate "I am an empty attribute list *AND* I want my directory hidden by default". However, that's almost identical to requiring a placeholder attribute in the list just to make __first_visible() happy.
Other ideas?
Perhaps an optional ->is_group_visible() callback in struct attribute_group which gets passed only the struct kobject pointer?
At least for PCI device authentication, that would be sufficient. I could get from the kobject to the corresponding struct device, then determine whether the device supports authentication or not.
Because it's a new, optional callback, there should be no compatibility issues. The SYSFS_GROUP_INVISIBLE return code from the ->is_visible() call for individual attributes would not be needed then, at least in my use case.
Thanks,
Lukas