[PATCH v4 1/5] fs, block: refactor enum rw_hint

[Kanchan Joshi]

On 8/26/2024 11:14 PM, Bart Van Assche wrote:
> On 8/26/24 10:06 AM, Kanchan Joshi wrote:
>> Change i_write_hint (in inode), bi_write_hint (in bio) and write_hint
>> (in request) to use u8 data-type rather than this enum.
> 
> That sounds fishy to me. Why to increase the size of this enum? Why to
> reduce the ability of the compiler to perform type checking? I think
> this needs to be motivated clearly in the patch description.

Since inode/bio/request stopped using this, the __packed annotation did 
not seem to serve much purpose. But sure, I can retain the size/checks 
on the renamed enum (rw_life_hint) too.

Motivation for keeping u8 in inode/bio/request is to represent another 
hint type. This is similar to ioprio where multiple io priority 
classes/values are expressed within an int type.