bcopy()

Hi Linus,

The implementation of bcopy() in lib/string.c (and some other places such as the XFS header files) is incorrect as it implements bcopy as memcpy. This is
wrong: bcopy should be the equivalent of memmove (which handles overlapping areas correctly).

I've dicussed it with a number of people, and the general consensus seems to be that it should be nuked entirely? Do you agree?

David

Kernel bcopy in traditional unix versions never supported overlapping. That's what ovbcopy() is/was for.

I agree. bcopy should just DIE. Some architectures may have historical trouble with gcc emitting bcopy for structure assignments (and that's definitely a memcpy with no overlap), but I think that's long gone (I know gcc on alpha used to do this several years ago).

XFS seems to be a big user of bcopy, though..

Linus