[U-Boot] [PATCH v2 1/2] cmd: nvedit: add whitelist option for env import

[Alex Kiernan]

On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 1:06 PM Quentin Schulz <quentin.schulz at bootlin.com>
wrote:

> Hi Alex,

> On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 12:56:04PM +0100, Alex Kiernan wrote:
> > On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 9:02 AM Quentin Schulz <
quentin.schulz at bootlin.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Stephen,
> >
> > > On Fri, May 18, 2018 at 10:00:27AM -0600, Stephen Warren wrote:
> > > > On 05/18/2018 08:44 AM, Quentin Schulz wrote:
> > > > > While the `env export` can take as parameters variables to be
> > exported,
> > > > > `env import` does not have such a mechanism of variable selection.
> > > > >
> > > > > Let's add a `-w` option that asks `env import` to look for the
> > > > > `whitelisted_vars` env variable for a space-separated list of
> > variables
> > > > > that are whitelisted.
> > > >
> > > > Would it be better for the -w option to accept a variable name
rather
> > than
> > > > hard-coding it as whitelisted_vars? That way, people could
import/export
> > > > different sets of variables at different times, and also could
choose a
> > more
> > > > use-case-specific variable name than whitelisted_vars in order to
> > describe
> > > > why those variables are "whitelisted".
> >
> > > This has been raised in the previous version of the patch[1] (of which
> > > you weren't in the mail recipients) and a similar patch[2] made by
Alex
> > > Kiernan (Cc of this patch series). I'd say it's an ongoing discussion,
> > > though I should have mentioned it in the comments of the patch?
> >
> > > TL;DR:
> > > Proposition 1: Have -w only which "hardcodedly" checks for
> > > "whitelisting_vars",
> > > +: straightforward implementation of the argument parsing,
> > > -: implicit declaration of the list: you have to know to set
> > >     whitelisted_vars in the environnement,
> >
> > > Proposition 2: Have -w followed by one string-word which is the name
of
> > > the env variable where to look for the list of whitelisted env
> > > variables,
> > > +: explicit var to check where whitelist is looked for,
> > > -: a bit of complexity added to the parsing of the parameters of the
env
> > >     import function,
> >
> > > Proposition 3: Have -w followed by the list of whitelisted env
variable,
> > > +: explicit list
> > > -: the list cannot be separated by comma (valid character for an env
> > >     variable) or a space (would not be able to distinguish the last
> > >     arguments of the commands which are address and size with size
being
> > >     optional => how to know if size was passed or not?), what char
can be
> > >     used to separate env variables in the list?
> > >     how does it perform with a very long list of whitelisted
variables?
> >
> >
> > Two more thoughts, both of which delegate the separator problem to the
> > caller (the second being the one I implemented as it's almost no code)
> >
> > - specify multiple -w options each specifying a whitelisted env variable

> You'll hit the maximum number of arguments/length of the command quickly
> with this method. Quicker than with the other propositions.


So you just made me go and read the definition for CONFIG_SYS_MAXARGS, the
default's clearly pretty small (16). I guess I don't have a feeling for how
many args you want to import - my use case is for 4, so even with max args
at
16 I'm within that limit.

--
Alex Kiernan