Re: [PATCH] Deprecate 32-bit off_t support

[Siddhesh Poyarekar <siddhesh at gotplt dot org>]

On 04/01/19 6:09 PM, Florian Weimer wrote:
> diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
> index cc20102fda..2f601c6217 100644
> --- a/NEWS
> +++ b/NEWS
> @@ -85,6 +85,15 @@ Deprecated and removed features, and other changes affecting compatibility:
>     as all functions that call vscanf, vfscanf, or vsscanf are annotated with
>     __attribute__ ((format (scanf, ...))).
>   
> +* A future release of glibc will use a 64-bit off_t type on all

Wouldn't it be clearer to fix the 'future release' to a specific 
timeline, say, 2.31 (to give a year+ to change offending code) so that 
this doesn't sound like a vague threat and there's actually a time bound 
for people to work with?

> +  architectures (as currently available with -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 on
> +  32-bit architectures).  Building new applications with
> +  -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=32 will no longer be supported.  The off64_t type and
> +  the 64-bit function aliases (such as fstat64) will remain available under
> +  the appropriate feature test macros.  In preparation, libraries should
> +  stop using off_t in public header files, and use off64_t (or a fixed-width
> +  type such as int64_t or uint64_t) instead.
> +
>   Changes to build and runtime requirements:
>   
>   * Python 3.4 or later is required to build the GNU C Library.