leftpad.ko

In March of 2016, the removal of a package called left-pad from npm created a giant mess of failed builds all over the internet. The package consisted only of a single function, leftPad(), which pads strings to a given width. This event demonstrates the disaster potential of failing to take left-padding seriously.

left-pad.io, created soon after the situation described above, was the first ever LPAAS (left-pad-as-a-service) product. LPAAS is a step in the right direction, but I believe we can do better.

To that end, here is an implementation of leftPad() inside the kernel.

Parameters

• width: width to pad to (default 32)
• fill: value of the character to fill with (e.g. 32 for ' ') (default 32)
• buffer_size: size of the internal ring buffer (default 1024)

All parameters are mutable. The values at the time the device is opened determine the behavior of that instance.

IOCTL

• 800d3900: set width
• 800d3901: set fill

Changes apply only to a specific instance.

Example Usage

$ make
$ insmod leftpad.ko width=10
$ mknod /dev/leftpad c 1337 0 -m 666
$ exec 8<>/dev/leftpad
$ echo foobar >&8
$ head -n 1 <&8
    foobar
$ echo 20 > /sys/module/leftpad/parameters/width
$ echo 43 > /sys/module/leftpad/parameters/fill
$ exec 9<>/dev/leftpad
$ echo bazqux >&9
$ head -n 1 <&9
++++++++++++++bazqux
$ exec 10<>/dev/leftpad
$ python -c 'import fcntl; fcntl.ioctl(10, 0x800d3900, 12); fcntl.ioctl(10, 0x800d3901, ord("_"))'
$ echo zyzzy >&10
$ head -n 1 <&10
_______xyzzy
$ #
$ # \(@_@)/
$ #

Implementation Details

Each time /dev/leftpad is opened, a ring buffer of size buffer_size is associated with the open file. Writing fails if there is not enough space in the buffer. Reads happen by line, and block until there is a newline in the buffer.