[parted-devel] [PATCH 1/2] libparted: enforce dos partition limit

[Phillip Susi]

On 1/23/2012 1:38 PM, Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko wrote:
> You can always use a limit dictated by allocated bits and if it exceeds
> this, you need to issue a warning.
> However if the light of hpa's statement I suppose that it should handle
> the overflow somehow as well.

That's why I said that technically linux.c should throw an exception
warning when you exceed the kernel limit, but it has never done this
before ( when the limit was much lower ), and now that the limit is so
high, seems very unlikely to ever happen, so I'm not sure it's worth the
bother.

> Also any code asking for limits when there is none is either also
> limited by something else or is against GNU Coding Standards.

linux.c uses the lower of the two limits: what the kernel supports, and
what the partition table supports.  Given that the partition table
claims to only support X partitions, then it assumes there can not be
more than X partitions, even if the kernel supports it.  This is why it
was wrong for dos to claim a limit, but not enforce it.

As for what that limit is, it could 65535 for all I care, but whatever
the partition table claims its limit is, should actually be the limit.