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USB: add rationale on why usb descriptor structures have to be packed
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Add argumentation in defense of using __attribute__((packed)) in USB
descriptors authored by Dave Brownell. Necessary as in some cases it
seems superfluous.

Signed-off-by: Inaky Perez-Gonzalez <inaky@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
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Inaky Perez-Gonzalez authored and Greg Kroah-Hartman committed Feb 23, 2007
1 parent 822c7ef commit 672027a
Showing 1 changed file with 18 additions and 4 deletions.
22 changes: 18 additions & 4 deletions include/linux/usb/ch9.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
/*
* This file holds USB constants and structures that are needed for USB
* device APIs. These are used by the USB device model, which is defined
* in chapter 9 of the USB 2.0 specification. Linux has several APIs in C
* that need these:
* This file holds USB constants and structures that are needed for
* USB device APIs. These are used by the USB device model, which is
* defined in chapter 9 of the USB 2.0 specification and in the
* Wireless USB 1.0 (spread around). Linux has several APIs in C that
* need these:
*
* - the master/host side Linux-USB kernel driver API;
* - the "usbfs" user space API; and
Expand All @@ -14,6 +15,19 @@
*
* There's also "Wireless USB", using low power short range radios for
* peripheral interconnection but otherwise building on the USB framework.
*
* Note all descriptors are declared '__attribute__((packed))' so that:
*
* [a] they never get padded, either internally (USB spec writers
* probably handled that) or externally;
*
* [b] so that accessing bigger-than-a-bytes fields will never
* generate bus errors on any platform, even when the location of
* its descriptor inside a bundle isn't "naturally aligned", and
*
* [c] for consistency, removing all doubt even when it appears to
* someone that the two other points are non-issues for that
* particular descriptor type.
*/

#ifndef __LINUX_USB_CH9_H
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