[alsa-devel] [PATCH v2 - alsa-lib] cleanup: Use uint*_t instead of u_int*_t everythwere

[Natanael Copa]

On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 14:42:21 +0200
Takashi Iwai <tiwai at suse.de> wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Jul 2017 13:50:48 +0200,
> Natanael Copa wrote:
> > 
> > Use the standard uint{8,16,32,64}_t everywhere instead of the
> > non-standard u_int{8,16,32,64}_t.  
> 
> Note that, since it changes the types in the public header, it's no
> trivial "cleanup".  It has even a risk of breakage, in theory.

Yes.

> So, this has to be carried with a care, and it needs a better
> clarification why the change has to be applied.
> Could you give more background?

The intention was just to clean up code and to not add custom data
types when there are standard ones to use.

The standard uint{8,32,64}_t are also used various places in alsa-lib
code, so I thought it was better to be consistent to avoid
unintentional side-effects and breakages.

If you have a system where you rely on u_int8_t != uint8_t etc, then
you have system which is so weird that you probably know how to handle
it.

If you on the other hand unintentionally have u_int8_t != uint8_t then
you probably want things to break early and at minimum give a compiler
warning.

The thinking is, if things breaks due to this, then it probably
*should* break.

If there are any plans for ABI breakage in near future, then it might
be an idea to do this at that point.

Thanks!

-nc