PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 ) 
building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build 
system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl and 
python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a kernel.)  
Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system built from 
gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux kernel, and nothing 
else.  (Embedded developers creating clean cross compile environments that 
won't leak bits of the host system into the target, or bootstrapping native 
development environments to run on target hardware or under emulators, tend to 
care about this sort of thing.)

The perl checkin for 2.6.25 was the camel's nose under the tent flap, and 
since then two more instances of perl have shown up in the core kernel build.  
This patch series removes the three required to build a basic kernel for qemu 
for the targets I've tested (arm, mips, powerpc, sparc, m68k, sh4, and of 
course x86 and x86-64), replacing them with shell scripts.

Historically the kernel has gone out of its way to minimize environmental 
dependencies for the build.  For example, the plethora of *_shipped files mean 
we don't need lex and yacc to build the kernel.  The kconfig infrastructure 
once required curses to run "make oldconfig", but that requirement was 
restricted to just menuconfig so the kernel could build on systems without 
ncurses.

That was a very nice policy.  Kernel development already requires an in-depth 
knowledge of C, make, and shell, plus things like the kconfig language.  A 
similarly in-depth knowledge of perl is bigger than all that combined (even 
Larry Wall probably doesn't know all of Perl anymore), and then what's the 
excuse _not_ to add Python to the core build?  And after that why not java, or 
lua?  Where does it end?  What's the criteria to say "no" here?

This patch series saves time and says no now.

[PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell script
is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.

Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.25.  Before that, the kernel had never
required perl to build.

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

 kernel/Makefile     |    4 
 kernel/timeconst.pl |  378 ------------------------------------------
 kernel/timeconst.sh |   91 ++++++++++
 3 files changed, 93 insertions(+), 380 deletions(-)

diff -r d0c7611dcfd6 kernel/Makefile
--- a/kernel/Makefile	Tue Dec 30 17:48:25 2008 -0800
+++ b/kernel/Makefile	Fri Jan 02 00:10:44 2009 -0600
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
 $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h
 
 quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@
-      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
+      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
 targets += timeconst.h
-$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE
+$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE
 	$(call if_changed,timeconst)
--- /dev/null	1969-12-31 00:00:00.000000000 -0600
+++ hg/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-01-01 23:53:17.000000000 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+if [ $# -ne 1 ]
+then
+	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ"
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+HZ=$1
+
+# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit math.
+
+[ $((1<<32)) -lt 0 ] && exit 1
+
+# Output start of header file
+
+cat << EOF
+/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */
+/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */
+
+#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
+#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
+
+#include <linux/param.h>
+#include <linux/types.h>
+
+#if HZ != $HZ
+#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"
+#endif
+
+EOF
+
+# For both Miliseconds and Microseconds
+
+for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
+do
+	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
+	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
+
+	# Find greatest common denominator (using Euclid's algorithm)
+
+	A=$HZ
+	B=$PERIOD
+
+	while [ $B -ne 0 ]
+	do
+		C=$(($A%$B))
+		A=$B
+		B=$C
+	done
+
+	GCD=$A
+
+	# Do this for each direction (HZ_TO_PERIOD and PERIOD_TO_HZ)
+
+	for DIRECTION in 0 1
+	do
+		if [ $DIRECTION -eq 0 ]
+		then
+			CONVERT="HZ_TO_${NAME}"
+			FROM=$HZ
+			TO=$PERIOD
+		else
+			CONVERT="${NAME}_TO_HZ"
+			FROM=$PERIOD
+			TO=$HZ
+		fi
+
+		# How many shift bits give 32 bits of significant data?
+
+		SHIFT=0
+		while [ $(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM )) -lt $((1<<31)) ]
+		do
+			SHIFT=$(( $SHIFT+1 ))
+		done
+
+		MUL32=$(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM ))
+		MUL32=$(printf %x $MUL32)
+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_MUL32	U64_C(0x$MUL32)"
+		ADJ32=$(($FROM/$GCD))
+		ADJ32=$(( (($ADJ32-1)<<$SHIFT)/$ADJ32 ))
+		ADJ32=$(printf %x $ADJ32)
+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_ADJ32	U64_C(0x$ADJ32)"
+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_SHR32	$SHIFT"
+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_NUM		U64_C($(($TO/$GCD)))"
+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_DEN		U64_C($(($FROM/$GCD)))"
+	done
+done
+
+echo
+echo "#endif /* KERNEL_TIMECHONST_H */"
--- hg/kernel/timeconst.pl	2008-11-22 19:09:13.000000000 -0600
+++ /dev/null	1969-12-31 00:00:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -1,378 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl
-# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#
-#   Copyright 2007-2008 rPath, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
-#
-#   This file is part of the Linux kernel, and is made available under
-#   the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or (at your
-#   option) any later version; incorporated herein by reference.
-#
-# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#
-
-#
-# Usage: timeconst.pl HZ > timeconst.h
-#
-
-# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt
-# Generated by:
-# timeconst.pl --can 24 32 48 64 100 122 128 200 250 256 300 512 1000 1024 1200
-%canned_values = (
-	24 => [
-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x2aaaaaa',26,
-		125,3,
-		'0xc49ba5e4','0x1fbe76c8b4',37,
-		3,125,
-		'0xa2c2aaab','0xaaaa',16,
-		125000,3,
-		'0xc9539b89','0x7fffbce4217d',47,
-		3,125000,
-	], 32 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x6000000',27,
-		125,4,
-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645a',36,
-		4,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x0',17,
-		31250,1,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x3fff79c842fa',46,
-		1,31250,
-	], 48 => [
-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x6aaaaaa',27,
-		125,6,
-		'0xc49ba5e4','0xfdf3b645a',36,
-		6,125,
-		'0xa2c2aaab','0x15555',17,
-		62500,3,
-		'0xc9539b89','0x3fffbce4217d',46,
-		3,62500,
-	], 64 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0xe000000',28,
-		125,8,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22d',35,
-		8,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x0',18,
-		15625,1,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842fa',45,
-		1,15625,
-	], 100 => [
-		'0xa0000000','0x0',28,
-		10,1,
-		'0xcccccccd','0x733333333',35,
-		1,10,
-		'0x9c400000','0x0',18,
-		10000,1,
-		'0xd1b71759','0x1fff2e48e8a7',45,
-		1,10000,
-	], 122 => [
-		'0x8325c53f','0xfbcda3a',28,
-		500,61,
-		'0xf9db22d1','0x7fbe76c8b',35,
-		61,500,
-		'0x8012e2a0','0x3ef36',18,
-		500000,61,
-		'0xffda4053','0x1ffffbce4217',45,
-		61,500000,
-	], 128 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x1e000000',29,
-		125,16,
-		'0x83126e98','0x3f7ced916',34,
-		16,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x40000',19,
-		15625,2,
-		'0x8637bd06','0xfffbce4217d',44,
-		2,15625,
-	], 200 => [
-		'0xa0000000','0x0',29,
-		5,1,
-		'0xcccccccd','0x333333333',34,
-		1,5,
-		'0x9c400000','0x0',19,
-		5000,1,
-		'0xd1b71759','0xfff2e48e8a7',44,
-		1,5000,
-	], 250 => [
-		'0x80000000','0x0',29,
-		4,1,
-		'0x80000000','0x180000000',33,
-		1,4,
-		'0xfa000000','0x0',20,
-		4000,1,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ff7ced9168',43,
-		1,4000,
-	], 256 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x3e000000',30,
-		125,32,
-		'0x83126e98','0x1fbe76c8b',33,
-		32,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0xc0000',20,
-		15625,4,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x7ffde7210be',43,
-		4,15625,
-	], 300 => [
-		'0xd5555556','0x2aaaaaaa',30,
-		10,3,
-		'0x9999999a','0x1cccccccc',33,
-		3,10,
-		'0xd0555556','0xaaaaa',20,
-		10000,3,
-		'0x9d495183','0x7ffcb923a29',43,
-		3,10000,
-	], 512 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x7e000000',31,
-		125,64,
-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645',32,
-		64,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x1c0000',21,
-		15625,8,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x3ffef39085f',42,
-		8,15625,
-	], 1000 => [
-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,
-		1,1,
-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,
-		1,1,
-		'0xfa000000','0x0',22,
-		1000,1,
-		'0x83126e98','0x1ff7ced9168',41,
-		1,1000,
-	], 1024 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0xfe000000',32,
-		125,128,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22',31,
-		128,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x3c0000',22,
-		15625,16,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842f',41,
-		16,15625,
-	], 1200 => [
-		'0xd5555556','0xd5555555',32,
-		5,6,
-		'0x9999999a','0x66666666',31,
-		6,5,
-		'0xd0555556','0x2aaaaa',22,
-		2500,3,
-		'0x9d495183','0x1ffcb923a29',41,
-		3,2500,
-	]
-);
-
-$has_bigint = eval 'use Math::BigInt qw(bgcd); 1;';
-
-sub bint($)
-{
-	my($x) = @_;
-	return Math::BigInt->new($x);
-}
-
-#
-# Constants for division by reciprocal multiplication.
-# (bits, numerator, denominator)
-#
-sub fmul($$$)
-{
-	my ($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	return scalar (($n << $b)+$d-bint(1))/$d;
-}
-
-sub fadj($$$)
-{
-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	$d = $d/bgcd($n, $d);
-	return scalar (($d-bint(1)) << $b)/$d;
-}
-
-sub fmuls($$$) {
-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-	my($s,$m);
-	my($thres) = bint(1) << ($b-1);
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	for ($s = 0; 1; $s++) {
-		$m = fmul($s,$n,$d);
-		return $s if ($m >= $thres);
-	}
-	return 0;
-}
-
-# Generate a hex value if the result fits in 64 bits;
-# otherwise skip.
-sub bignum_hex($) {
-	my($x) = @_;
-	my $s = $x->as_hex();
-
-	return (length($s) > 18) ? undef : $s;
-}
-
-# Provides mul, adj, and shr factors for a specific
-# (bit, time, hz) combination
-sub muladj($$$) {
-	my($b, $t, $hz) = @_;
-	my $s = fmuls($b, $t, $hz);
-	my $m = fmul($s, $t, $hz);
-	my $a = fadj($s, $t, $hz);
-	return (bignum_hex($m), bignum_hex($a), $s);
-}
-
-# Provides numerator, denominator values
-sub numden($$) {
-	my($n, $d) = @_;
-	my $g = bgcd($n, $d);
-	return ($n/$g, $d/$g);
-}
-
-# All values for a specific (time, hz) combo
-sub conversions($$) {
-	my ($t, $hz) = @_;
-	my @val = ();
-
-	# HZ_TO_xx
-	push(@val, muladj(32, $t, $hz));
-	push(@val, numden($t, $hz));
-
-	# xx_TO_HZ
-	push(@val, muladj(32, $hz, $t));
-	push(@val, numden($hz, $t));
-
-	return @val;
-}
-
-sub compute_values($) {
-	my($hz) = @_;
-	my @val = ();
-	my $s, $m, $a, $g;
-
-	if (!$has_bigint) {
-		die "$0: HZ == $hz not canned and ".
-		    "Math::BigInt not available\n";
-	}
-
-	# MSEC conversions
-	push(@val, conversions(1000, $hz));
-
-	# USEC conversions
-	push(@val, conversions(1000000, $hz));
-
-	return @val;
-}
-
-sub outputval($$)
-{
-	my($name, $val) = @_;
-	my $csuf;
-
-	if (defined($val)) {
-	    if ($name !~ /SHR/) {
-		$val = "U64_C($val)";
-	    }
-	    printf "#define %-23s %s\n", $name.$csuf, $val.$csuf;
-	}
-}
-
-sub output($@)
-{
-	my($hz, @val) = @_;
-	my $pfx, $bit, $suf, $s, $m, $a;
-
-	print "/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.pl */\n";
-	print "/* Conversion constants for HZ == $hz */\n";
-	print "\n";
-	print "#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";
-	print "#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";
-	print "\n";
-
-	print "#include <linux/param.h>\n";
-	print "#include <linux/types.h>\n";
-
-	print "\n";
-	print "#if HZ != $hz\n";
-	print "#error \"kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!\"\n";
-	print "#endif\n";
-	print "\n";
-
-	foreach $pfx ('HZ_TO_MSEC','MSEC_TO_HZ',
-		      'HZ_TO_USEC','USEC_TO_HZ') {
-		foreach $bit (32) {
-			foreach $suf ('MUL', 'ADJ', 'SHR') {
-				outputval("${pfx}_$suf$bit", shift(@val));
-			}
-		}
-		foreach $suf ('NUM', 'DEN') {
-			outputval("${pfx}_$suf", shift(@val));
-		}
-	}
-
-	print "\n";
-	print "#endif /* KERNEL_TIMECONST_H */\n";
-}
-
-# Pretty-print Perl values
-sub perlvals(@) {
-	my $v;
-	my @l = ();
-
-	foreach $v (@_) {
-		if (!defined($v)) {
-			push(@l, 'undef');
-		} elsif ($v =~ /^0x/) {
-			push(@l, "\'".$v."\'");
-		} else {
-			push(@l, $v.'');
-		}
-	}
-	return join(',', @l);
-}
-
-($hz) = @ARGV;
-
-# Use this to generate the %canned_values structure
-if ($hz eq '--can') {
-	shift(@ARGV);
-	@hzlist = sort {$a <=> $b} (@ARGV);
-
-	print "# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt\n";
-	print "# Generated by:\n";
-	print "# timeconst.pl --can ", join(' ', @hzlist), "\n";
-	print "\%canned_values = (\n";
-	my $pf = "\t";
-	foreach $hz (@hzlist) {
-		my @values = compute_values($hz);
-		print "$pf$hz => [\n";
-		while (scalar(@values)) {
-			my $bit;
-			foreach $bit (32) {
-				my $m = shift(@values);
-				my $a = shift(@values);
-				my $s = shift(@values);
-				print "\t\t", perlvals($m,$a,$s), ",\n";
-			}
-			my $n = shift(@values);
-			my $d = shift(@values);
-			print "\t\t", perlvals($n,$d), ",\n";
-		}
-		print "\t]";
-		$pf = ', ';
-	}
-	print "\n);\n";
-} else {
-	$hz += 0;			# Force to number
-	if ($hz < 1) {
-		die "Usage: $0 HZ\n";
-	}
-
-	@val = @{$canned_values{$hz}};
-	if (!defined(@val)) {
-		@val = compute_values($hz);
-	}
-	output($hz, @val);
-}
-exit 0;
\0

[PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell scriptis much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.
Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.25.  Before that, the kernel had neverrequired perl to build.
Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>---
 kernel/Makefile     |    4  kernel/timeconst.pl |  378 ------------------------------------------ kernel/timeconst.sh |   91 ++++++++++ 3 files changed, 93 insertions(+), 380 deletions(-)
diff -r d0c7611dcfd6 kernel/Makefile--- a/kernel/Makefile	Tue Dec 30 17:48:25 2008 -0800+++ b/kernel/Makefile	Fri Jan 02 00:10:44 2009 -0600@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h  quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@-      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@+      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@ targets += timeconst.h-$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE+$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE 	$(call if_changed,timeconst)--- /dev/null	1969-12-31 00:00:00.000000000 -0600+++ hg/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-01-01 23:53:17.000000000 -0600@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@+#!/bin/bash++if [ $# -ne 1 ]+then+	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ"+	exit 1+fi++HZ=$1++# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit math.++[ $((1<<32)) -lt 0 ] && exit 1++# Output start of header file++cat << EOF+/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */+/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */++#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H+#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H++#include <linux/param.h>+#include <linux/types.h>++#if HZ != $HZ+#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"+#endif++EOF++# For both Miliseconds and Microseconds++for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"+do+	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')+	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')++	# Find greatest common denominator (using Euclid's algorithm)++	A=$HZ+	B=$PERIOD++	while [ $B -ne 0 ]+	do+		C=$(($A%$B))+		A=$B+		B=$C+	done++	GCD=$A++	# Do this for each direction (HZ_TO_PERIOD and PERIOD_TO_HZ)++	for DIRECTION in 0 1+	do+		if [ $DIRECTION -eq 0 ]+		then+			CONVERT="HZ_TO_${NAME}"+			FROM=$HZ+			TO=$PERIOD+		else+			CONVERT="${NAME}_TO_HZ"+			FROM=$PERIOD+			TO=$HZ+		fi++		# How many shift bits give 32 bits of significant data?++		SHIFT=0+		while [ $(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM )) -lt $((1<<31)) ]+		do+			SHIFT=$(( $SHIFT+1 ))+		done++		MUL32=$(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM ))+		MUL32=$(printf %x $MUL32)+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_MUL32	U64_C(0x$MUL32)"+		ADJ32=$(($FROM/$GCD))+		ADJ32=$(( (($ADJ32-1)<<$SHIFT)/$ADJ32 ))+		ADJ32=$(printf %x $ADJ32)+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_ADJ32	U64_C(0x$ADJ32)"+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_SHR32	$SHIFT"+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_NUM		U64_C($(($TO/$GCD)))"+		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_DEN		U64_C($(($FROM/$GCD)))"+	done+done++echo+echo "#endif /* KERNEL_TIMECHONST_H */"--- hg/kernel/timeconst.pl	2008-11-22 19:09:13.000000000 -0600+++ /dev/null	1969-12-31 00:00:00.000000000 -0600@@ -1,378 +0,0 @@-#!/usr/bin/perl-# ------------------------------------------------------------------------#-#   Copyright 2007-2008 rPath, Inc. - All Rights Reserved-#-#   This file is part of the Linux kernel, and is made available under-#   the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or (at your-#   option) any later version; incorporated herein by reference.-#-# ------------------------------------------------------------------------#--#-# Usage: timeconst.pl HZ > timeconst.h-#--# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt-# Generated by:-# timeconst.pl --can 24 32 48 64 100 122 128 200 250 256 300 512 1000 1024 1200-%canned_values = (-	24 => [-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x2aaaaaa',26,-		125,3,-		'0xc49ba5e4','0x1fbe76c8b4',37,-		3,125,-		'0xa2c2aaab','0xaaaa',16,-		125000,3,-		'0xc9539b89','0x7fffbce4217d',47,-		3,125000,-	], 32 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x6000000',27,-		125,4,-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645a',36,-		4,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x0',17,-		31250,1,-		'0x8637bd06','0x3fff79c842fa',46,-		1,31250,-	], 48 => [-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x6aaaaaa',27,-		125,6,-		'0xc49ba5e4','0xfdf3b645a',36,-		6,125,-		'0xa2c2aaab','0x15555',17,-		62500,3,-		'0xc9539b89','0x3fffbce4217d',46,-		3,62500,-	], 64 => [-		'0xfa000000','0xe000000',28,-		125,8,-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22d',35,-		8,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x0',18,-		15625,1,-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842fa',45,-		1,15625,-	], 100 => [-		'0xa0000000','0x0',28,-		10,1,-		'0xcccccccd','0x733333333',35,-		1,10,-		'0x9c400000','0x0',18,-		10000,1,-		'0xd1b71759','0x1fff2e48e8a7',45,-		1,10000,-	], 122 => [-		'0x8325c53f','0xfbcda3a',28,-		500,61,-		'0xf9db22d1','0x7fbe76c8b',35,-		61,500,-		'0x8012e2a0','0x3ef36',18,-		500000,61,-		'0xffda4053','0x1ffffbce4217',45,-		61,500000,-	], 128 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x1e000000',29,-		125,16,-		'0x83126e98','0x3f7ced916',34,-		16,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x40000',19,-		15625,2,-		'0x8637bd06','0xfffbce4217d',44,-		2,15625,-	], 200 => [-		'0xa0000000','0x0',29,-		5,1,-		'0xcccccccd','0x333333333',34,-		1,5,-		'0x9c400000','0x0',19,-		5000,1,-		'0xd1b71759','0xfff2e48e8a7',44,-		1,5000,-	], 250 => [-		'0x80000000','0x0',29,-		4,1,-		'0x80000000','0x180000000',33,-		1,4,-		'0xfa000000','0x0',20,-		4000,1,-		'0x83126e98','0x7ff7ced9168',43,-		1,4000,-	], 256 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x3e000000',30,-		125,32,-		'0x83126e98','0x1fbe76c8b',33,-		32,125,-		'0xf4240000','0xc0000',20,-		15625,4,-		'0x8637bd06','0x7ffde7210be',43,-		4,15625,-	], 300 => [-		'0xd5555556','0x2aaaaaaa',30,-		10,3,-		'0x9999999a','0x1cccccccc',33,-		3,10,-		'0xd0555556','0xaaaaa',20,-		10000,3,-		'0x9d495183','0x7ffcb923a29',43,-		3,10000,-	], 512 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x7e000000',31,-		125,64,-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645',32,-		64,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x1c0000',21,-		15625,8,-		'0x8637bd06','0x3ffef39085f',42,-		8,15625,-	], 1000 => [-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,-		1,1,-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,-		1,1,-		'0xfa000000','0x0',22,-		1000,1,-		'0x83126e98','0x1ff7ced9168',41,-		1,1000,-	], 1024 => [-		'0xfa000000','0xfe000000',32,-		125,128,-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22',31,-		128,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x3c0000',22,-		15625,16,-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842f',41,-		16,15625,-	], 1200 => [-		'0xd5555556','0xd5555555',32,-		5,6,-		'0x9999999a','0x66666666',31,-		6,5,-		'0xd0555556','0x2aaaaa',22,-		2500,3,-		'0x9d495183','0x1ffcb923a29',41,-		3,2500,-	]-);--$has_bigint = eval 'use Math::BigInt qw(bgcd); 1;';--sub bint($)-{-	my($x) = @_;-	return Math::BigInt->new($x);-}--#-# Constants for division by reciprocal multiplication.-# (bits, numerator, denominator)-#-sub fmul($$$)-{-	my ($b,$n,$d) = @_;--	$n = bint($n);-	$d = bint($d);--	return scalar (($n << $b)+$d-bint(1))/$d;-}--sub fadj($$$)-{-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;--	$n = bint($n);-	$d = bint($d);--	$d = $d/bgcd($n, $d);-	return scalar (($d-bint(1)) << $b)/$d;-}--sub fmuls($$$) {-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;-	my($s,$m);-	my($thres) = bint(1) << ($b-1);--	$n = bint($n);-	$d = bint($d);--	for ($s = 0; 1; $s++) {-		$m = fmul($s,$n,$d);-		return $s if ($m >= $thres);-	}-	return 0;-}--# Generate a hex value if the result fits in 64 bits;-# otherwise skip.-sub bignum_hex($) {-	my($x) = @_;-	my $s = $x->as_hex();--	return (length($s) > 18) ? undef : $s;-}--# Provides mul, adj, and shr factors for a specific-# (bit, time, hz) combination-sub muladj($$$) {-	my($b, $t, $hz) = @_;-	my $s = fmuls($b, $t, $hz);-	my $m = fmul($s, $t, $hz);-	my $a = fadj($s, $t, $hz);-	return (bignum_hex($m), bignum_hex($a), $s);-}--# Provides numerator, denominator values-sub numden($$) {-	my($n, $d) = @_;-	my $g = bgcd($n, $d);-	return ($n/$g, $d/$g);-}--# All values for a specific (time, hz) combo-sub conversions($$) {-	my ($t, $hz) = @_;-	my @val = ();--	# HZ_TO_xx-	push(@val, muladj(32, $t, $hz));-	push(@val, numden($t, $hz));--	# xx_TO_HZ-	push(@val, muladj(32, $hz, $t));-	push(@val, numden($hz, $t));--	return @val;-}--sub compute_values($) {-	my($hz) = @_;-	my @val = ();-	my $s, $m, $a, $g;--	if (!$has_bigint) {-		die "$0: HZ == $hz not canned and ".-		    "Math::BigInt not available\n";-	}--	# MSEC conversions-	push(@val, conversions(1000, $hz));--	# USEC conversions-	push(@val, conversions(1000000, $hz));--	return @val;-}--sub outputval($$)-{-	my($name, $val) = @_;-	my $csuf;--	if (defined($val)) {-	    if ($name !~ /SHR/) {-		$val = "U64_C($val)";-	    }-	    printf "#define %-23s %s\n", $name.$csuf, $val.$csuf;-	}-}--sub output($@)-{-	my($hz, @val) = @_;-	my $pfx, $bit, $suf, $s, $m, $a;--	print "/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.pl */\n";-	print "/* Conversion constants for HZ == $hz */\n";-	print "\n";-	print "#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";-	print "#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";-	print "\n";--	print "#include <linux/param.h>\n";-	print "#include <linux/types.h>\n";--	print "\n";-	print "#if HZ != $hz\n";-	print "#error \"kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!\"\n";-	print "#endif\n";-	print "\n";--	foreach $pfx ('HZ_TO_MSEC','MSEC_TO_HZ',-		      'HZ_TO_USEC','USEC_TO_HZ') {-		foreach $bit (32) {-			foreach $suf ('MUL', 'ADJ', 'SHR') {-				outputval("${pfx}_$suf$bit", shift(@val));-			}-		}-		foreach $suf ('NUM', 'DEN') {-			outputval("${pfx}_$suf", shift(@val));-		}-	}--	print "\n";-	print "#endif /* KERNEL_TIMECONST_H */\n";-}--# Pretty-print Perl values-sub perlvals(@) {-	my $v;-	my @l = ();--	foreach $v (@_) {-		if (!defined($v)) {-			push(@l, 'undef');-		} elsif ($v =~ /^0x/) {-			push(@l, "\'".$v."\'");-		} else {-			push(@l, $v.'');-		}-	}-	return join(',', @l);-}--($hz) = @ARGV;--# Use this to generate the %canned_values structure-if ($hz eq '--can') {-	shift(@ARGV);-	@hzlist = sort {$a <=> $b} (@ARGV);--	print "# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt\n";-	print "# Generated by:\n";-	print "# timeconst.pl --can ", join(' ', @hzlist), "\n";-	print "\%canned_values = (\n";-	my $pf = "\t";-	foreach $hz (@hzlist) {-		my @values = compute_values($hz);-		print "$pf$hz => [\n";-		while (scalar(@values)) {-			my $bit;-			foreach $bit (32) {-				my $m = shift(@values);-				my $a = shift(@values);-				my $s = shift(@values);-				print "\t\t", perlvals($m,$a,$s), ",\n";-			}-			my $n = shift(@values);-			my $d = shift(@values);-			print "\t\t", perlvals($n,$d), ",\n";-		}-		print "\t]";-		$pf = ', ';-	}-	print "\n);\n";-} else {-	$hz += 0;			# Force to number-	if ($hz < 1) {-		die "Usage: $0 HZ\n";-	}--	@val = @{$canned_values{$hz}};-	if (!defined(@val)) {-		@val = compute_values($hz);-	}-	output($hz, @val);-}-exit 0;\0ÿôèº{.nÇ+‰·Ÿ®‰­†+%ŠËÿ±éݶ\x17¥Šwÿº{.nÇ+‰·¥Š{±þG«éÿŠ{ayº\x1dʇڙë,j\a­¢f£¢·hšïêÿ‘êçz_è®\x03(­éšŽŠÝ¢j"ú\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿ¾\a«þG«éÿ¢¸?™¨è­Ú&£ø§~á¶iO•æ¬z·švØ^\x14\x04\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿÃ\fÿ¶ìÿ¢¸?–I¥

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Sam Ravnborg]

Hi Rob.

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 02:13:30AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> 
> Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell script
> is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.

This part of the changelog is OK except that is fails to
address why we want to get away from perl.

Please drop the remining part of the changelog (but not the s-o-b).

> Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.25.  Before that, the kernel had never
> required perl to build.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> ---
> 
>  kernel/Makefile     |    4 
>  kernel/timeconst.pl |  378 ------------------------------------------
>  kernel/timeconst.sh |   91 ++++++++++
>  3 files changed, 93 insertions(+), 380 deletions(-)
> 
> diff -r d0c7611dcfd6 kernel/Makefile
> --- a/kernel/Makefile	Tue Dec 30 17:48:25 2008 -0800
> +++ b/kernel/Makefile	Fri Jan 02 00:10:44 2009 -0600
> @@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
>  $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h
>  
>  quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@
> -      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
> +      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
>  targets += timeconst.h
> -$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE
> +$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE
>  	$(call if_changed,timeconst)
OK

> --- /dev/null	1969-12-31 00:00:00.000000000 -0600
> +++ hg/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-01-01 23:53:17.000000000 -0600
> @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
> +#!/bin/bash
> +
> +if [ $# -ne 1 ]
> +then
> +	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ"
> +	exit 1
> +fi
That usage is useless. Either extend it or spend a few lines
in the shell script explainign what the shell script is supposed to do.

> +
> +HZ=$1
> +
> +# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit math.
> +
> +[ $((1<<32)) -lt 0 ] && exit 1
> +
If it fails then add an error message explaining why. So if we get reports that this
fails then we at least can see something like:
"timeconst noticed that the shell did not support 64 bit math - stop"


> +# Output start of header file
> +
> +cat << EOF
> +/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */
> +/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */
> +
> +#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
> +#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H

Please use __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H. The two underscores are standard.

> +
> +#include <linux/param.h>
> +#include <linux/types.h>
> +
> +#if HZ != $HZ
> +#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"
> +#endif
> +
> +EOF
> +
> +# For both Miliseconds and Microseconds
> +
> +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> +do
> +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
> +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
> +
> +	# Find greatest common denominator (using Euclid's algorithm)
> +
> +	A=$HZ
> +	B=$PERIOD
> +
> +	while [ $B -ne 0 ]
> +	do
> +		C=$(($A%$B))
> +		A=$B
> +		B=$C
> +	done
> +
> +	GCD=$A
> +
> +	# Do this for each direction (HZ_TO_PERIOD and PERIOD_TO_HZ)
> +
> +	for DIRECTION in 0 1
> +	do
> +		if [ $DIRECTION -eq 0 ]
> +		then
> +			CONVERT="HZ_TO_${NAME}"
> +			FROM=$HZ
> +			TO=$PERIOD
> +		else
> +			CONVERT="${NAME}_TO_HZ"
> +			FROM=$PERIOD
> +			TO=$HZ
> +		fi
> +
> +		# How many shift bits give 32 bits of significant data?
> +
> +		SHIFT=0
> +		while [ $(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM )) -lt $((1<<31)) ]
> +		do
> +			SHIFT=$(( $SHIFT+1 ))
> +		done
> +
> +		MUL32=$(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM ))
> +		MUL32=$(printf %x $MUL32)
> +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_MUL32	U64_C(0x$MUL32)"
> +		ADJ32=$(($FROM/$GCD))
> +		ADJ32=$(( (($ADJ32-1)<<$SHIFT)/$ADJ32 ))
> +		ADJ32=$(printf %x $ADJ32)
> +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_ADJ32	U64_C(0x$ADJ32)"
> +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_SHR32	$SHIFT"
> +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_NUM		U64_C($(($TO/$GCD)))"
> +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_DEN		U64_C($(($FROM/$GCD)))"
> +	done
> +done

Is it a shell limitation that all spaces around operators are missing?
Makes it hard to read..

You should use trap in your shell script so we do not end up with a
partially generated file.
Or you should change the rule in the Makefile to use
a temperary file and then rename it.

We have similar bugs in other places - but no need to add
in more places.


	Sam

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 03:04:39 Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> Hi Rob.
>
> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 02:13:30AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> > From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> >
> > Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell
> > script is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from
> > 2003.
>
> This part of the changelog is OK except that is fails to
> address why we want to get away from perl.

You mean "The new shell script is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, runs on 
Red Hat 9 from 2003, and isn't perl?" :)

> Please drop the remining part of the changelog (but not the s-o-b).

ok.

> > Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.25.  Before that, the kernel had never
> > required perl to build.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> > ---
> >
> >  kernel/Makefile     |    4
> >  kernel/timeconst.pl |  378 ------------------------------------------
> >  kernel/timeconst.sh |   91 ++++++++++
> >  3 files changed, 93 insertions(+), 380 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff -r d0c7611dcfd6 kernel/Makefile
> > --- a/kernel/Makefile	Tue Dec 30 17:48:25 2008 -0800
> > +++ b/kernel/Makefile	Fri Jan 02 00:10:44 2009 -0600
> > @@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
> >  $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h
> >
> >  quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@
> > -      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
> > +      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
> >  targets += timeconst.h
> > -$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE
> > +$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE
> >  	$(call if_changed,timeconst)
>
> OK
>
> > --- /dev/null	1969-12-31 00:00:00.000000000 -0600
> > +++ hg/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-01-01 23:53:17.000000000 -0600
> > @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
> > +#!/bin/bash
> > +
> > +if [ $# -ne 1 ]
> > +then
> > +	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ"
> > +	exit 1
> > +fi
>
> That usage is useless. Either extend it or spend a few lines
> in the shell script explainign what the shell script is supposed to do.

Do you mean something more like:

echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ"
echo
echo "Generates a header file of constants for converting between decimal"
echo "HZ timer ticks and milisecond or microsecond delays"

I'm happy turning it into a comment instead, I just found a quick check that 
I'd remembered to type an argument useful during debugging. :)

> > +
> > +HZ=$1
> > +
> > +# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit
> > math. +
> > +[ $((1<<32)) -lt 0 ] && exit 1
> > +
>
> If it fails then add an error message explaining why. So if we get reports
> that this fails then we at least can see something like:
> "timeconst noticed that the shell did not support 64 bit math - stop"

Ok.

> > +# Output start of header file
> > +
> > +cat << EOF
> > +/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */
> > +/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */
> > +
> > +#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
> > +#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
>
> Please use __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H. The two underscores are standard.

Sure thing.  (I was just copying the perl there, I'll post an updated patch 
after I get some sleep.)

> > +
> > +#include <linux/param.h>
> > +#include <linux/types.h>
> > +
> > +#if HZ != $HZ
> > +#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"
> > +#endif
> > +
> > +EOF
> > +
> > +# For both Miliseconds and Microseconds
> > +
> > +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> > +do
> > +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
> > +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
> > +
> > +	# Find greatest common denominator (using Euclid's algorithm)
> > +
> > +	A=$HZ
> > +	B=$PERIOD
> > +
> > +	while [ $B -ne 0 ]
> > +	do
> > +		C=$(($A%$B))
> > +		A=$B
> > +		B=$C
> > +	done
> > +
> > +	GCD=$A
> > +
> > +	# Do this for each direction (HZ_TO_PERIOD and PERIOD_TO_HZ)
> > +
> > +	for DIRECTION in 0 1
> > +	do
> > +		if [ $DIRECTION -eq 0 ]
> > +		then
> > +			CONVERT="HZ_TO_${NAME}"
> > +			FROM=$HZ
> > +			TO=$PERIOD
> > +		else
> > +			CONVERT="${NAME}_TO_HZ"
> > +			FROM=$PERIOD
> > +			TO=$HZ
> > +		fi
> > +
> > +		# How many shift bits give 32 bits of significant data?
> > +
> > +		SHIFT=0
> > +		while [ $(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM )) -lt $((1<<31)) ]
> > +		do
> > +			SHIFT=$(( $SHIFT+1 ))
> > +		done
> > +
> > +		MUL32=$(( (($TO<<$SHIFT)+$FROM-1)/$FROM ))
> > +		MUL32=$(printf %x $MUL32)
> > +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_MUL32	U64_C(0x$MUL32)"
> > +		ADJ32=$(($FROM/$GCD))
> > +		ADJ32=$(( (($ADJ32-1)<<$SHIFT)/$ADJ32 ))
> > +		ADJ32=$(printf %x $ADJ32)
> > +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_ADJ32	U64_C(0x$ADJ32)"
> > +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_SHR32	$SHIFT"
> > +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_NUM		U64_C($(($TO/$GCD)))"
> > +		echo "#define ${CONVERT}_DEN		U64_C($(($FROM/$GCD)))"
> > +	done
> > +done
>
> Is it a shell limitation that all spaces around operators are missing?
> Makes it hard to read..

No, I was just trying to make sure I didn't go over the 80 char limit.  
(Several temporary variables are there primarily because the style guide says 
indentation should be via 8 space tabs.)

I'll add some more spaces on the respin.

>
> You should use trap in your shell script so we do not end up with a
> partially generated file.
> Or you should change the rule in the Makefile to use
> a temperary file and then rename it.
>
> We have similar bugs in other places - but no need to add
> in more places.

Well, preserve in this case. :)

I can add an "EXIT" trap and then disarm it later, but the output is 
redirected in the makefile, so generating an error won't remove the output if 
you run again.  Perhaps the file to create should be fed in as a second 
argument to the script, so the trap can "rm" the output file if it triggers?

I'll poke at it in the morning.

Thanks for the feedback,

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[H. Peter Anvin]

Rob Landley wrote:
> 
> You mean "The new shell script is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, runs on 
> Red Hat 9 from 2003, and isn't perl?" :)
> 

And introduces unclear environment dependencies depending on how
external utilities are implemented.

The whole point of why that script was written in Perl was to have
access to arbitrary-precision arithmetic -- after it was shown that bc
would simply lock up on some systems.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 13:33:02 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > You mean "The new shell script is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, runs
> > on Red Hat 9 from 2003, and isn't perl?" :)
>
> And introduces unclear environment dependencies depending on how
> external utilities are implemented.

I note that sed and printf and such are all susv3.  I have an explicit test 
for 32 bit math in the script that cares, and this worked in Red Hat 9 circa 
2003.

I consider this a step up from code with an implicit dependency on a CPAN 
library.

> The whole point of why that script was written in Perl was to have
> access to arbitrary-precision arithmetic -- after it was shown that bc
> would simply lock up on some systems.

A) I'm not using bc.

B) You don't need arbitrary precision arithmetic, you need around 72 bits 
worth of arithmetic for the pathological case.

C) Your definition of "access to arbitrary-precision arithmetic" includes the 
following, cut and paste verbatim from your old script:

# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt
# Generated by:
# timeconst.pl --can 24 32 48 64 100 122 128 200 250 256 300 512 1000 1024 
1200
%canned_values = (
    24 => [
        '0xa6aaaaab','0x2aaaaaa',26,
        125,3,
        '0xc49ba5e4','0x1fbe76c8b4',37,
        3,125,
        '0xa2c2aaab','0xaaaa',16,
        125000,3,
        '0xc9539b89','0x7fffbce4217d',47,
        3,125000,
    ], 32 => [
        '0xfa000000','0x6000000',27,
        125,4,
        '0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645a',36,
        4,125,
        '0xf4240000','0x0',17,
        31250,1,
        '0x8637bd06','0x3fff79c842fa',46,
        1,31250,
    ], 48 => [
        '0xa6aaaaab','0x6aaaaaa',27,
        125,6,
        '0xc49ba5e4','0xfdf3b645a',36,
        6,125,
        '0xa2c2aaab','0x15555',17,
        62500,3,
        '0xc9539b89','0x3fffbce4217d',46,
        3,62500,
    ], 64 => [
        '0xfa000000','0xe000000',28,
        125,8,
        '0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22d',35,
        8,125,
        '0xf4240000','0x0',18,
        15625,1,
        '0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842fa',45,
        1,15625,
    ], 100 => [
        '0xa0000000','0x0',28,
        10,1,
        '0xcccccccd','0x733333333',35,
        1,10,
        '0x9c400000','0x0',18,
        10000,1,
        '0xd1b71759','0x1fff2e48e8a7',45,
        1,10000,
    ], 122 => [
        '0x8325c53f','0xfbcda3a',28,
        500,61,
        '0xf9db22d1','0x7fbe76c8b',35,
        61,500,
        '0x8012e2a0','0x3ef36',18,
        500000,61,
        '0xffda4053','0x1ffffbce4217',45,
        61,500000,
    ], 128 => [
        '0xfa000000','0x1e000000',29,
        125,16,
        '0x83126e98','0x3f7ced916',34,
        16,125,
        '0xf4240000','0x40000',19,
        15625,2,
        '0x8637bd06','0xfffbce4217d',44,
        2,15625,
    ], 200 => [
        '0xa0000000','0x0',29,
        5,1,
        '0xcccccccd','0x333333333',34,
        1,5,
        '0x9c400000','0x0',19,
        5000,1,
        '0xd1b71759','0xfff2e48e8a7',44,
        1,5000,
    ], 250 => [
        '0x80000000','0x0',29,
        4,1,
        '0x80000000','0x180000000',33,
        1,4,
        '0xfa000000','0x0',20,
        4000,1,
        '0x83126e98','0x7ff7ced9168',43,
        1,4000,
    ], 256 => [
        '0xfa000000','0x3e000000',30,
        125,32,
        '0x83126e98','0x1fbe76c8b',33,
        32,125,
        '0xf4240000','0xc0000',20,
        15625,4,
        '0x8637bd06','0x7ffde7210be',43,
        4,15625,
    ], 300 => [
        '0xd5555556','0x2aaaaaaa',30,
        10,3,
        '0x9999999a','0x1cccccccc',33,
        3,10,
        '0xd0555556','0xaaaaa',20,
        10000,3,
        '0x9d495183','0x7ffcb923a29',43,
        3,10000,
    ], 512 => [
        '0xfa000000','0x7e000000',31,
        125,64,
        '0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645',32,
        64,125,
        '0xf4240000','0x1c0000',21,
        15625,8,
        '0x8637bd06','0x3ffef39085f',42,
        8,15625,
    ], 1000 => [
        '0x80000000','0x0',31,
        1,1,
        '0x80000000','0x0',31,
        1,1,
        '0xfa000000','0x0',22,
        1000,1,
        '0x83126e98','0x1ff7ced9168',41,
        1,1000,
    ], 1024 => [
        '0xfa000000','0xfe000000',32,
        125,128,
        '0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22',31,
        128,125,
        '0xf4240000','0x3c0000',22,
        15625,16,
        '0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842f',41,
        16,15625,
    ], 1200 => [
        '0xd5555556','0xd5555555',32,
        5,6,
        '0x9999999a','0x66666666',31,
        6,5,
        '0xd0555556','0x2aaaaa',22,
        2500,3,
        '0x9d495183','0x1ffcb923a29',41,
        3,2500,
    ]
);

Plus a decent chunk of the remaining logic was code to regenerate that table, 
and to figure out when to use the table and when to compute new values.  (And 
erroring out if the system wasn't capable of doing so.)  I don't understand 
why you didn't just precompute the actual header file output instead or 
precomputing perl source, but that's a side issue.

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[H. Peter Anvin]

Rob Landley wrote:
> 
> I consider this a step up from code with an implicit dependency on a CPAN 
> library.
> 

There is no CPAN library in use.  Math::BigInt is a standard part of
Perl, and the canned values is there only to support extremely old
versions of Perl, or weird system configurations, as a
belt-and-suspenders measure.

	-hpa

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Alan Cox]

> I note that sed and printf and such are all susv3.  I have an explicit test 
> for 32 bit math in the script that cares, and this worked in Red Hat 9 circa 
> 2003.

If you are trying to do arbitary precision maths using standard posix
tools just use dc. That way the standard is explicit about what you will
get.

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[H. Peter Anvin]

Alan Cox wrote:
>> I note that sed and printf and such are all susv3.  I have an explicit test 
>> for 32 bit math in the script that cares, and this worked in Red Hat 9 circa 
>> 2003.
> 
> If you are trying to do arbitary precision maths using standard posix
> tools just use dc. That way the standard is explicit about what you will
> get.

The original patch used bc.  Unfortunately, it ran into bc bugs -- on
some platforms like some of akpm's older test machines it would just hang.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Sunday 04 January 2009 06:07:35 Alan Cox wrote:
> > I note that sed and printf and such are all susv3.  I have an explicit
> > test for 32 bit math in the script that cares, and this worked in Red Hat
> > 9 circa 2003.
>
> If you are trying to do arbitary precision maths using standard posix
> tools just use dc. That way the standard is explicit about what you will
> get.

I looked at that, but:

A) the Open Group Base Specifications (which I normally go by, since they're 
roughly synonymous with SUSv3 and Posix and available free on the web; they 
just released version 7 a week or so back) don't list dc as one of their 
utilities.  (They mention bc, but not dc.)

B) The busybox implementation of dc is crap.  I got 'em to fix the bug where 
the output defaulted to binary instead of decimal, but the math is all done as 
floating point rather than arbitrary precision, and they don't implement the 
<< operator.

C) The only calculation which can overflow 64 bits (the ADJ32 one) turns out 
not to need arbitrary precision math, just 72 bits, and if it ever uses more 
than 32 then bottom 32 are all zero before the divide so you can do it in 
three lines.

Essentially, the ADJ32 calculation is "(($NUMBER-1)<<$SHIFT)/$NUMBER".

$SHIFT maxes out at 51 and the largest interesting $NUMBER is 1000000.  
(That's the pathological case of HZ=1, calculating the USEC_TO_HZ direction.  
A larger $HZ results in a smaller $SHIFT by the number of bits needed to store 
$HZ, by the way, so a $HZ of 17 would have a shift of 47.  So even a HZ bigger 
than a million should have a small enough $SHIFT not to cause trouble here, 
although that's probably an _insane_ input to this script.)

1 million needs 20 bits to store, so the above calculation has to cope with an 
intermediate value of 999999<<51 which takes a little over 70 bits to store, 
hence the potential to overflow 63 bits of signed math.

But this calculation has two special properties:

1) The number you start with before the shift is divided back out at the end 
(more or less), so the _result_ has to be less than 1<<$SHIFT and thus only 
takes $SHIFT bits to store.  With a maximum $SHIFT of 51 it has to fit in a 64 
bit result with about a dozen bits to spare.

2) The bottom $SHIFT many bits are all zero before the divide.

We can use these two properties to easily break the math into chunks that 
can't overflow by:

a) Chopping off the bottom X bits and dividing what's left by $NUMBER, keeping 
both the dividend and the remainder.  Choose any X that's big enough that this 
step won't overflow.  (I chose X=32, leaving at most 40-ish bits here).
b) Shift that dividend X bits to the left.  This can't overflow because of 
special property 1 above.
c) Shift the remainder X bits to the left.  The remainder can't be larger than 
the $NUMBER you started with, so if X+bits($NUMBER)<64 this has to fit too.  
With X=32 and bits=20 we again have a dozen bits to spare.
d) Add the results of (b) and (c) together.  Since the bottom X bits were all 
zero, this is equivalent to having done the full divide.  (Easy enough to mask 
those bottom bits off and add them to the remainder before the divide if they 
weren't, but we didn't need to do that because we know they were zero.)

So no arbitrary precision math is actually required here, and yes there's a 
comment in the source about this. :)

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[H. Peter Anvin]

Rob Landley wrote:
> 
> C) The only calculation which can overflow 64 bits (the ADJ32 one) turns out 
> not to need arbitrary precision math, just 72 bits, and if it ever uses more 
> than 32 then bottom 32 are all zero before the divide so you can do it in 
> three lines.
> 

... for the current code (32 bits).  When we get an overflow-less 64-bit
implementation, this code will have to be redone, which is not true for
a properly done implementation.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Sunday 04 January 2009 14:39:36 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > C) The only calculation which can overflow 64 bits (the ADJ32 one) turns
> > out not to need arbitrary precision math, just 72 bits, and if it ever
> > uses more than 32 then bottom 32 are all zero before the divide so you
> > can do it in three lines.
>
> ... for the current code (32 bits).  When we get an overflow-less 64-bit
> implementation, this code will have to be redone, which is not true for
> a properly done implementation.

One extra mask and add is a strange definition of "redone", but I can add it 
now if you like.  (I'd personally prefer to wait for something to actually 
need it, but...)

> 	-hpa

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Harvey Harrison]

On Fri, 2009-01-02 at 06:00 -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Friday 02 January 2009 03:04:39 Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > > +# Output start of header file
> > > +
> > > +cat << EOF
> > > +/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */
> > > +/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */
> > > +
> > > +#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
> > > +#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
> >
> > Please use __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H. The two underscores are standard.
> 
> Sure thing.  (I was just copying the perl there, I'll post an updated patch 
> after I get some sleep.)

In the x86 discussions recently regarding header guards, I though a single
underscore was eventually decided on as 'standard'.

Harvey

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Ingo Oeser]

Hi Robert,

I fully support your argument here: Requiring lots of hacks in various languages
to build a system core sucks. But now sth. more productive:

On Friday 02 January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> diff -r d0c7611dcfd6 kernel/Makefile
> --- a/kernel/Makefile	Tue Dec 30 17:48:25 2008 -0800
> +++ b/kernel/Makefile	Fri Jan 02 00:10:44 2009 -0600
> @@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
>  $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h
>  
>  quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@
> -      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
> +      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
>  targets += timeconst.h
> -$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE
> +$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE
>  	$(call if_changed,timeconst)
> --- /dev/null	1969-12-31 00:00:00.000000000 -0600
> +++ hg/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-01-01 23:53:17.000000000 -0600
> @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
> +#!/bin/bash
> +
> +if [ $# -ne 1 ]
> +then
> +	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ"
> +	exit 1
> +fi
> +
> +HZ=$1
> +
> +# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit math.
> +
> +[ $((1<<32)) -lt 0 ] && exit 1
> +
> +# Output start of header file
> +
> +cat << EOF
> +/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */
> +/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */
> +
> +#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
> +#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
> +
> +#include <linux/param.h>
> +#include <linux/types.h>
> +
> +#if HZ != $HZ
> +#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"
> +#endif
> +
> +EOF
> +
> +# For both Miliseconds and Microseconds
> +
> +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> +do
> +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')

cut -d' ' -f1  does the same

> +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')

cut -d' ' -f2  does the same


Best Regards

Ingo Oeser

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 06:28:22 Ingo Oeser wrote:
> > +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> > +do
> > +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
>
> cut -d' ' -f1  does the same
>
> > +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
>
> cut -d' ' -f2  does the same

From a standards perspective 
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cut.html vs 
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/awk.html is probably 
a wash, but from a simplicity perspective using the tool that _isn't_ its own 
programming language is probably a win. :)

I made the change in the second round of patches I just posted.

Thanks,

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 06:28:22 Ingo Oeser wrote:
> > +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> > +do
> > +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
>
> cut -d' ' -f1  does the same
>
> > +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
>
> cut -d' ' -f2  does the same

>From a standards perspective 
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cut.html vs 
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/awk.html is probably 
a wash, but from a simplicity perspective using the tool that _isn't_ its own 
programming language is probably a win. :)

I made the change in the second round of patches I just posted.

Thanks,

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 769 bytes --]

On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:36:04 CST, Rob Landley said:
> On Saturday 03 January 2009 06:28:22 Ingo Oeser wrote:
> > > +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> > > +do
> > > +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
> >
> > cut -d' ' -f1  does the same
> >
> > > +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
> >
> > cut -d' ' -f2  does the same

Close, but no cee-gar.  cut does something counter-intuitive with multiple
blanks:

% echo 'a    b' | awk '{print $2}'
b
% echo 'a    b' | cut -d' ' -f2

% echo 'a    b' | sed -r 's/[ ]+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f2
b

Unfortunately, 'sed -r' isn't in the opengroup.org list of required options,
and sed 's/  / /g' doesn't DTRT for 3 or more blanks (as it won't recursively
apply the change to a *new* double blank formed by the previous change).


[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 226 bytes --]

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 23:07:55 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:36:04 CST, Rob Landley said:
> > On Saturday 03 January 2009 06:28:22 Ingo Oeser wrote:
> > > > +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> > > > +do
> > > > +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
> > >
> > > cut -d' ' -f1  does the same
> > >
> > > > +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
> > >
> > > cut -d' ' -f2  does the same
>
> Close, but no cee-gar.  cut does something counter-intuitive with multiple
> blanks:

Yes, but in this case I'm the one passing in the data so I know there aren't 
multiple blanks.  (Or tabs instead of spaces.)

In a private email, Bernd Petrovitsch suggested "set -- $i" and then using 
NAME=$1; PERIOD=$2.  (I keep getting private email responses to these sort of 
threads, and then getting dismissed as the only one who cares about the issue.  
Less so this time around, but still...)  This apparently works all the way 
back to the bourne shell.  Not worth rolling another patch for, but if I do 
wind up rolling another patch for other reasons I might switch over to that.  
Both "cut" and "awk" are susv3, though.

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Jamie Lokier]

Rob Landley wrote:
> In a private email, Bernd Petrovitsch suggested "set -- $i" and then
> using NAME=$1; PERIOD=$2.  (I keep getting private email responses
> to these sort of threads, and then getting dismissed as the only one
> who cares about the issue.  Less so this time around, but still...)
> This apparently works all the way back to the bourne shell.

If you're going "all the way back to the bourne shell", don't use "set
-- $i"; use "set x $i" instead, and don't expect to do any arithmetic
in the shell; use "expr" or "awk" for arithmetic.

(Not relevant to kernel scripts, imho, since you can always assume
something a bit more modern and not too stripped down).

(I have 850 Linux boxes on my network with a bourne shell which
doesn't do $((...)).  I won't be building kernels on them though :-)

-- Jamie

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Son, 2009-01-04 at 22:13 +0000, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > In a private email, Bernd Petrovitsch suggested "set -- $i" and then
> > using NAME=$1; PERIOD=$2.  (I keep getting private email responses
> > to these sort of threads, and then getting dismissed as the only one
> > who cares about the issue.  Less so this time around, but still...)
> > This apparently works all the way back to the bourne shell.
> 
> If you're going "all the way back to the bourne shell", don't use "set

"Going back to a Bourne shell" was neither the intention nor makes it
sense IMHO.
I mentioned it to point out that the `set -- ' (or `set x `) is nothing
new or even a bash-ism.

> -- $i"; use "set x $i" instead, and don't expect to do any arithmetic
> in the shell; use "expr" or "awk" for arithmetic.
> 
> (Not relevant to kernel scripts, imho, since you can always assume
> something a bit more modern and not too stripped down).

ACK. A bash can IMHO be expected. Even going for `dash` is IMHO somewhat
too extreme.

> (I have 850 Linux boxes on my network with a bourne shell which
> doesn't do $((...)).  I won't be building kernels on them though :-)

Believe it or not, but there are folks out there who build the firmware
on ARM 200 MHz NFS-mounted systems natively  (and not simply
cross-compile it on a 2GHz PC .....).

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Jamie Lokier]

Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> > (I have 850 Linux boxes on my network with a bourne shell which
> > doesn't do $((...)).  I won't be building kernels on them though :-)
> 
> Believe it or not, but there are folks out there who build the firmware
> on ARM 200 MHz NFS-mounted systems natively  (and not simply
> cross-compile it on a 2GHz PC .....).

Really?

My 850 Linux boxes are 166MHz ARMs and occasionally NFS-mounted.
Their /bin/sh does not do $((...)), and Bash is not there at all.

If I were installing GCC natively on them, I'd install GNU Make and a
proper shell while I were at it.  But I don't know if Bash works
properly without fork()* - or even if GCC does :-)

Perl might be hard, as shared libraries aren't supported by the
toolchain which targets my ARMs* and Perl likes its loadable modules.

I'm not sure why I would want to build a kernel on these devices.

But I see why people with mobile ARM devices like gphones might
want to, when they're out travelling.

-- Jamie

(* - No MMU on some ARMs, but I'm working on ARM FDPIC-ELF to add
     proper shared libs.  Feel free to fund this :-)

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 02:23 +0000, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> > > (I have 850 Linux boxes on my network with a bourne shell which
> > > doesn't do $((...)).  I won't be building kernels on them though :-)
> > 
> > Believe it or not, but there are folks out there who build the firmware
> > on ARM 200 MHz NFS-mounted systems natively  (and not simply
> > cross-compile it on a 2GHz PC .....).
> 
> Really?
> 
> My 850 Linux boxes are 166MHz ARMs and occasionally NFS-mounted.
> Their /bin/sh does not do $((...)), and Bash is not there at all.

I assume that the NFS-mounted root filesystem is a real distribution.
And on the local flash is a usual busybox based firmware.

> If I were installing GCC natively on them, I'd install GNU Make and a
> proper shell while I were at it.  But I don't know if Bash works

ACK.

> properly without fork()* - or even if GCC does :-)
> 
> Perl might be hard, as shared libraries aren't supported by the
> toolchain which targets my ARMs* and Perl likes its loadable modules.

The simplest way to go is probably to use CentOS or Debian or another
ready binary distribution on ARM (or MIPS or PPC or whatever core the
embedded system has) possibly on a custom build kernel (if necessary).

[...]
> (* - No MMU on some ARMs, but I'm working on ARM FDPIC-ELF to add
>      proper shared libs.  Feel free to fund this :-)

The above mentioned ARMs have a MMU. Without MMU, it would be truly
insane IMHO.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Jamie Lokier]

Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> I assume that the NFS-mounted root filesystem is a real distribution.

Not unless you call uClinux (MMU-less) a real distribution, no.

> > (* - No MMU on some ARMs, but I'm working on ARM FDPIC-ELF to add
> >      proper shared libs.  Feel free to fund this :-)
> 
> The above mentioned ARMs have a MMU. Without MMU, it would be truly
> insane IMHO.

We have similar cross-build issues without MMUs... I.e. that a lot of
useful packages don't cross-build properly (including many which use
Autoconf), and it might be easier to make a native build environment
than to debug and patch all the broken-for-cross-build packages.
Especially as sometimes they build, but fail at run-time in some
conditions.

But you're right it's probably insane to try.  I haven't dared as I
suspect GCC and/or Binutils would break too :-)

I'm sticking instead with "oh well cross-build a few packages by hand
and just don't even _try_ to use most of the handy software out there".

You mentioned ARM Debian.  According to
http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort one recommended method of
bootstrapping it is building natively on an emulated ARM, because
cross-building is fragile.

-- Jamie

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 15:01 +0000, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> > I assume that the NFS-mounted root filesystem is a real distribution.
> 
> Not unless you call uClinux (MMU-less) a real distribution, no.

Not really.

> > > (* - No MMU on some ARMs, but I'm working on ARM FDPIC-ELF to add
> > >      proper shared libs.  Feel free to fund this :-)
> > 
> > The above mentioned ARMs have a MMU. Without MMU, it would be truly
> > insane IMHO.
> 
> We have similar cross-build issues without MMUs... I.e. that a lot of

Of course.

> useful packages don't cross-build properly (including many which use
> Autoconf), and it might be easier to make a native build environment

Tell me about it - AC_TRY_RUN() is the culprit.
And `pkg-config` supports cross-compilation only since 18 months or so.
Before one had to rewrite the generated .pc files.

[...]
> You mentioned ARM Debian.  According to
> http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort one recommended method of
> bootstrapping it is building natively on an emulated ARM, because
> cross-building is fragile.

That's of course the other solution - if qemu supports your
$EMBEDDED_CPU good enough.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Monday 05 January 2009 09:01:56 Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> > I assume that the NFS-mounted root filesystem is a real distribution.
>
> Not unless you call uClinux (MMU-less) a real distribution, no.

I want things to be orthogonal.  The following should be completely separate 
steps:

1) Creating a cross compiler
2) building a native development environment
3) booting a native development environment (on real hardware or under and 
emulator)
4) natively building your target system.

You should be able to mix and match.  Crosstool for #1, go download "fedora 
for arm" instead of #2, qemu or real hardware is your choice for #3, and then 
you should be able to natively build gentoo under an ubuntu host or vice 
versa.  (How is not currently properly documented, but I'm working on that.)

My objection to build systems like buildroot or uClinux is that they bundle 
all this together into a big hairball.  They create their own cross compiler, 
build their own root file system, use their own packaging system, and you have 
to take it all or nothing.

My build system is ruthlessly orthogonal.  I try not to make it depend on 
other bits of _itself_ more than necessary.

> > > (* - No MMU on some ARMs, but I'm working on ARM FDPIC-ELF to add
> > >      proper shared libs.  Feel free to fund this :-)
> >
> > The above mentioned ARMs have a MMU. Without MMU, it would be truly
> > insane IMHO.
>
> We have similar cross-build issues without MMUs... I.e. that a lot of
> useful packages don't cross-build properly (including many which use
> Autoconf), and it might be easier to make a native build environment
> than to debug and patch all the broken-for-cross-build packages.
> Especially as sometimes they build, but fail at run-time in some
> conditions.

If you can get a version of the same architecture with an mmu you can actually 
build natively on that.  It's not ideal (it's a bit like trying to build i486 
code on an i686; the fact it runs on the host is no guarantee it'll run on the 
target), but it's better than cross compiling.  And most things have a broad 
enough compatible "base architecture" that you can mostly get away with it.

> But you're right it's probably insane to try.  I haven't dared as I
> suspect GCC and/or Binutils would break too :-)

Oh it does, but you can fix it. :)

> I'm sticking instead with "oh well cross-build a few packages by hand
> and just don't even _try_ to use most of the handy software out there".

Cross compiling doesn't scale, and it bit-rots insanely quickly.

> You mentioned ARM Debian.  According to
> http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort one recommended method of
> bootstrapping it is building natively on an emulated ARM, because
> cross-building is fragile.

That's what my firmware linux project does too.  (I believe I was one of the 
first doing this back in 2006, but there are three or four others out there 
doing it now.)

Native compiling under emulation is an idea whose time has come.  Emulators on 
cheap x86-64 laptops today are about as powerful as high end tricked out build 
servers circa 2001, and Moore's Law continues to advance.  More memory, more 
CPU (maybe via SMP but distcc can take advantage of that today and qemu will 
develop threading someday).  You can throw engineering time at the problem 
(making cross compiling work) or you can throw hardware at the problem (build 
natively and buy fast native or emulator-hosting hardware).  The balance used 
to be in favor of the former; not so much anymore.

That said, my drive for reproducibility and orthogonality says that your 
native development environment must be something you can reproduce entirely 
from source on an arbitrary host.  You can't make cross compiling go away 
entirely, the best you can do is limit it to bootstrapping the native 
environment.  But I want to keep the parts I have to cross compile as small 
and simple as possible, and then run a native build script to get a richer 
environment.  For the past 5+ years my definition has been "an environment 
that can rebuild itself under itself is powerful enough, that's all I need to 
cross compile", and from the first time I tried this (late 2002) up until 
2.6.25 that was 7 packages.  That's why I responded to the addition of perl as 
a regression, because for my use case it was.

> -- Jamie

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Monday 05 January 2009 04:46:18 Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> > My 850 Linux boxes are 166MHz ARMs and occasionally NFS-mounted.
> > Their /bin/sh does not do $((...)), and Bash is not there at all.
>
> I assume that the NFS-mounted root filesystem is a real distribution.
> And on the local flash is a usual busybox based firmware.

Building on an nfs mount is evil.  Make cares greatly about timestamp 
accuracy, and NFS's dentry cacheing doesn't really, especially when it 
discards cached copies and re-fetches them, and the server and client's clocks 
are a half-second off from each other.

Sometimes you haven't got a choice, but I hate having to debug the build 
problems this intermittently causes.  If you never do anything except "make 
all" it should suck less.

> > If I were installing GCC natively on them, I'd install GNU Make and a
> > proper shell while I were at it.  But I don't know if Bash works
>
> ACK.
>
> > properly without fork()* - or even if GCC does :-)
> >
> > Perl might be hard, as shared libraries aren't supported by the
> > toolchain which targets my ARMs* and Perl likes its loadable modules.
>
> The simplest way to go is probably to use CentOS or Debian or another
> ready binary distribution on ARM (or MIPS or PPC or whatever core the
> embedded system has) possibly on a custom build kernel (if necessary).

Building natively on target hardware or under QEMU is growing in popularity.  
That's how the non-x86 versions of major distros build, and they even have 
policy documents about it.

Here's Fedora's:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Architectures/ARM#Native_Compilation

And here are the guys who opened the door for Ubuntu's official Arm port:
http://mojo.handhelds.org/files/HandheldsMojo_ELC2008.pdf

Of course hobbyists like myself haven't got the budget to buy a cluster of 
high-end arm systems and they're not always even _available_ for things like 
cris, and for new architectures (Xylinx microblaze anyone?) you'll always have 
to cross compile to bootstrap the first development environment on 'em anyway, 
and it's nice for your environment to be _reproducible_...

So a more flexible approach is to cross compile just enough to get a working 
native development environment on the target, and then continue the build 
natively (whether it's under qemu or on a sufficiently powerful piece of 
target hardware).  That's what my "art piece" Firmware Linux project does, and 
there's a scratchbox rewrite (sbox2, 
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/sbox2 ) that does the same sort of 
thing, and there are others out there in various states of development.  With 
x86 hardware so cheap and powerful, building under emulation for less powerful 
targets starts to make sense.

Building natively under emulation (QEMU) is available to hobbyists like me and 
avoids most of the fun cross compiling issues you don't find out about until 
after you've shipped the system and somebody tries to do something with it you 
didn't test.  So far the record for diagnosing one of these is the two full-
time weeks my friend Garrett spent back at TimeSys tracking down why perl 
signal handling wasn't working on mips; turned out it was using x86 signal 
numbers rather which don't match the mips ones.  The BSP had been shipping for 
over a year at that point, but nobody had ever tried to do signal handling in 
perl on mips before, and since the perl ./configure step is written in perl 
finding the broken part took some doing.  This was back in the mists of early 
2007 so it's ancient history by now, of course...

If you have set up a cross compiler, you can configure QEMU to use distcc to 
call out through its virtual network to the cross compiler running on the 
host, which gives you a speed boost without reintroducing most of the horrible 
cross compiling issues: there's still only a native toolchain so your build 
doesn't have to keep two contexts (hostcc/targetcc) straight, ./configure 
still runs natively so any binaries it builds can run and any questions it 
asks about the host it's building on should give the right answers for the 
target it's building for (including uname -m and friends), headers are 
#included natively and libraries are linked natively (that's just how distcc 
works, preprocessing and linking happen on the local machine) and there's only 
one set so they can't accidentally mix and the cross compiler isn't even 
_involved_ in that, make runs natively so it won't get confused by strange 
environment variables (yeah, seen that one)...)  Only the heavy lifting of 
compiling preprocessed .c files to .o files gets exported, which is the one 
thing the cross compiler can't really screw up.

But bootstraping a native build environment to run under the emulator is 
something you want to keep down to as few packages as possible, because if 
you're trying to get the same behavior across half a dozen boards, cross 
compiling breaks every time you upgrade _anything_.

> [...]
>
> > (* - No MMU on some ARMs, but I'm working on ARM FDPIC-ELF to add
> >      proper shared libs.  Feel free to fund this :-)
>
> The above mentioned ARMs have a MMU. Without MMU, it would be truly
> insane IMHO.

Without an mmu you have a restricted set of packages that run anyway.  No 
variable length stacks, you have to use vfork() instead of fork() (no copy on 
write), memory fragmentation is a big problem so malloc() fails way more 
often...

So toolchain problems aren't a "hump" to get past on nommu systems: the area 
past that it isn't necessarily any easier.

> 	Bernd

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Sunday 04 January 2009 18:15:30 Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
> On Son, 2009-01-04 at 22:13 +0000, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> > Rob Landley wrote:
> > > In a private email, Bernd Petrovitsch suggested "set -- $i" and then
> > > using NAME=$1; PERIOD=$2.  (I keep getting private email responses
> > > to these sort of threads, and then getting dismissed as the only one
> > > who cares about the issue.  Less so this time around, but still...)
> > > This apparently works all the way back to the bourne shell.
> >
> > If you're going "all the way back to the bourne shell", don't use "set
>
> "Going back to a Bourne shell" was neither the intention nor makes it
> sense IMHO.
> I mentioned it to point out that the `set -- ' (or `set x `) is nothing
> new or even a bash-ism.
>
> > -- $i"; use "set x $i" instead, and don't expect to do any arithmetic
> > in the shell; use "expr" or "awk" for arithmetic.
> >
> > (Not relevant to kernel scripts, imho, since you can always assume
> > something a bit more modern and not too stripped down).
>
> ACK. A bash can IMHO be expected. Even going for `dash` is IMHO somewhat
> too extreme.

I have yet to encounter a system that uses dash _without_ bash.  (All ubuntu 
variants, even jeos, install bash by default.  They moved the /bin/sh symlink 
but they didn't stop installing bash, and the kernel will preferentially use 
bash if it finds it.)  People keep telling me they exist.  I suppose you could 
uninstall bash.  You could also uninstall gcc.  Not sure what that proves. 
(And nobody's shown me this mythical second implementation of perl that all 
these perl scripts are supposed to be portable to...)

Busybox ash is a more interesting case, but that implements lots of bash 
extensions.

That said, it's easy enough the scripts to work with current versions of dash.  
The whole shell portability issue mostly seems to be a stand-in for other 
objections (Peter Anvin didn't change syslinux and klibc to require perl to 
build this year because of dash), but it's easy enough to just address the 
proxy objection and move on rather than arguing about it...

> > (I have 850 Linux boxes on my network with a bourne shell which
> > doesn't do $((...)).  I won't be building kernels on them though :-)
>
> Believe it or not, but there are folks out there who build the firmware
> on ARM 200 MHz NFS-mounted systems natively  (and not simply
> cross-compile it on a 2GHz PC .....).

Yeah, but according to Changes if they do it with the current kernel they do 
it with at least gcc 3.2 (August 2002) and make 3.79.1 (June 2000), so trying 
to make it work on software released pre-Y2K probably isn't that high a 
priority. :)

> 	Bernd

Rob

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Son, 2009-01-04 at 22:50 -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Sunday 04 January 2009 18:15:30 Bernd Petrovitsch wrote:
[...]
> > ACK. A bash can IMHO be expected. Even going for `dash` is IMHO somewhat
> > too extreme.
> 
> I have yet to encounter a system that uses dash _without_ bash.  (All ubuntu 

Hmm, should be doable with a chroot environment quite cheap and simple.

> variants, even jeos, install bash by default.  They moved the /bin/sh symlink 

Yes, I know (small) embedded systems that have a bash (and not "only"
one of busybox shells). It eases writing somewhat fast shell scripts
without the need for lots of fork()s+exec()s too .....

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Alejandro Mery]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 579 bytes --]

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> Close, but no cee-gar. cut does something counter-intuitive with multiple
> blanks:
>
> % echo 'a    b' | awk '{print $2}'
> b
> % echo 'a    b' | cut -d' ' -f2
>
> % echo 'a    b' | sed -r 's/[ ]+/ /g' | cut -d' ' -f2
> b
>
> Unfortunately, 'sed -r' isn't in the opengroup.org list of required options,
> and sed 's/  / /g' doesn't DTRT for 3 or more blanks (as it won't recursively
> apply the change to a *new* double blank formed by the previous change).
echo 'a    b' | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f2
b

that is the light way ;-)

Alejandro Mery

[-- Attachment #2: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature --]
[-- Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature, Size: 5013 bytes --]

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 07:36:04PM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Saturday 03 January 2009 06:28:22 Ingo Oeser wrote:
> > > +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> > > +do
> > > +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
> >
> > cut -d' ' -f1  does the same
> >
> > > +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
> >
> > cut -d' ' -f2  does the same
> 
> From a standards perspective 
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cut.html vs 
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/awk.html is probably 
> a wash, but from a simplicity perspective using the tool that _isn't_ its own 
> programming language is probably a win. :)

Vagaries of 'cut' aside you can limit yourself here to just shell:

set_name_period () {
   NAME=$1 ; PERIOD=$2
}
for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
do
   set_name_period $i
....
done

or you may skip a shell function and do 'set $i' within a loop plus
assignments of $1 and $2 to NAME and PERIOD but that overwrites original
positional parameters (which may be already not important).

   Michał

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 07:36:04PM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Saturday 03 January 2009 06:28:22 Ingo Oeser wrote:
> > > +for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
> > > +do
> > > +	NAME=$(echo $i | awk '{print $1}')
> >
> > cut -d' ' -f1  does the same
> >
> > > +	PERIOD=$(echo $i | awk '{print $2}')
> >
> > cut -d' ' -f2  does the same
> 
> From a standards perspective 
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/cut.html vs 
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/awk.html is probably 
> a wash, but from a simplicity perspective using the tool that _isn't_ its own 
> programming language is probably a win. :)

Vagaries of 'cut' aside you can limit yourself here to just shell:

set_name_period () {
   NAME=$1 ; PERIOD=$2
}
for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
do
   set_name_period $i
....
done

or you may skip a shell function and do 'set $i' within a loop plus
assignments of $1 and $2 to NAME and PERIOD but that overwrites original
positional parameters (which may be already not important).

   Michał

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Ray Lee]

On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote:
> Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell script
> is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.
>
> Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.25.  Before that, the kernel had never
> required perl to build.

Nice work. As the computations can all be done in 64-bit precision
now, and there have been concerns expressed about some shells not
supporting 64 bit integers, is there any reason this can't be done
using long longs in C?

Other than ruining a good bike shed argument, anyway.

Re: [PATCH 1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh

[Rob Landley]

On Sunday 04 January 2009 18:41:15 Ray Lee wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote:
> > Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell
> > script is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from
> > 2003.
> >
> > Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.25.  Before that, the kernel had never
> > required perl to build.
>
> Nice work.

Thanks.  You'll definitely want to look at the _second_ version of that patch 
rather than the first, though. :)

> As the computations can all be done in 64-bit precision
> now, and there have been concerns expressed about some shells not
> supporting 64 bit integers, is there any reason this can't be done
> using long longs in C?

Nope.  Any of this could be done in C.  (And that's the approach Sam Ravnborg 
prefers to take for the second patch in the series, upgrading unifdef.c to do 
everything itself.)

I tend to lean towards scripts that create header files rather than programs 
that create header files, but as long as you remember to use HOSTCC it's 
fairly straightforward. :)

> Other than ruining a good bike shed argument, anyway.

Oh pile on.  It beats being dismissed as the only one on the planet who cares 
about the issue (again). :)

Rob

[PATCH 2/3]: Remove perl from make headers_install

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Remove perl from make headers_install by replacing a perl script (doing
a simple regex search and replace) with a smaller and faster shell script
implementation.  The new shell script is a single for loop calling sed and
piping its output through unifdef to produce the target file.

Sam Ravnborg added this perl to 2.6.27.

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

 scripts/Makefile.headersinst |    6 ++--
 scripts/headers_install.pl   |   46 ---------------------------------
 scripts/headers_install.sh   |   23 ++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)

--- /dev/null	2008-11-21 04:46:41.000000000 -0600
+++ b/scripts/headers_install.sh	2008-12-15 22:09:45.000000000 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# Grab arguments
+
+INDIR="$1"
+shift
+OUTDIR="$1"
+shift
+ARCH="$1"
+shift
+
+# Iterate through files listed on command line
+
+for i in "$@"
+do
+	sed -r \
+		-e 's/([ \t(])(__user|__force|__iomem)[ \t]/\1/g' \
+		-e 's/__attribute_const__([ \t]|$)/\1/g' \
+		-e 's@^#include <linux/compiler.h>@@' "$INDIR/$i" |
+	scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__ - > "$OUTDIR/$i"
+done
+
+exit 0
diff -r d9b501c91442 scripts/Makefile.headersinst
--- a/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	Sun Dec 14 16:25:19 2008 -0800
+++ b/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	Mon Dec 15 23:30:15 2008 -0600
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@
 quiet_cmd_install = INSTALL $(printdir) ($(words $(all-files))\
                             file$(if $(word 2, $(all-files)),s))
       cmd_install = \
-        $(PERL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \
-        $(PERL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \
+		$(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \
+		$(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \
         touch $@
 
 quiet_cmd_remove = REMOVE  $(unwanted)
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@
 	@:
 
 targets += $(install-file)
-$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.pl $(input-files) FORCE
+$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.sh $(input-files) FORCE
 	$(if $(unwanted),$(call cmd,remove),)
 	$(if $(wildcard $(dir $@)),,$(shell mkdir -p $(dir $@)))
 	$(call if_changed,install)
--- hg/scripts/headers_install.pl	2008-11-22 19:09:21.000000000 -0600
+++ /dev/null	1970-01-01 00:00:00 -0600
@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl -w
-#
-# headers_install prepare the listed header files for use in
-# user space and copy the files to their destination.
-#
-# Usage: headers_install.pl readdir installdir arch [files...]
-# readdir:    dir to open files
-# installdir: dir to install the files
-# arch:       current architecture
-#             arch is used to force a reinstallation when the arch
-#             changes because kbuild then detect a command line change.
-# files:      list of files to check
-#
-# Step in preparation for users space:
-# 1) Drop all use of compiler.h definitions
-# 2) Drop include of compiler.h
-# 3) Drop all sections defined out by __KERNEL__ (using unifdef)
-
-use strict;
-
-my ($readdir, $installdir, $arch, @files) = @ARGV;
-
-my $unifdef = "scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__";
-
-foreach my $file (@files) {
-	local *INFILE;
-	local *OUTFILE;
-	my $tmpfile = "$installdir/$file.tmp";
-	open(INFILE, "<$readdir/$file")
-		or die "$readdir/$file: $!\n";
-	open(OUTFILE, ">$tmpfile") or die "$tmpfile: $!\n";
-	while (my $line = <INFILE>) {
-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__user\s/$1/g;
-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__force\s/$1/g;
-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__iomem\s/$1/g;
-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__\s/ /g;
-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__$//g;
-		$line =~ s/^#include <linux\/compiler.h>//;
-		printf OUTFILE "%s", $line;
-	}
-	close OUTFILE;
-	close INFILE;
-	system $unifdef . " $tmpfile > $installdir/$file";
-	unlink $tmpfile;
-}
-exit 0;
\0

[PATCH 2/3]: Remove perl from make headers_install

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Remove perl from make headers_install by replacing a perl script (doinga simple regex search and replace) with a smaller and faster shell scriptimplementation.  The new shell script is a single for loop calling sed andpiping its output through unifdef to produce the target file.
Sam Ravnborg added this perl to 2.6.27.
Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>---
 scripts/Makefile.headersinst |    6 ++-- scripts/headers_install.pl   |   46 --------------------------------- scripts/headers_install.sh   |   23 ++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)
--- /dev/null	2008-11-21 04:46:41.000000000 -0600+++ b/scripts/headers_install.sh	2008-12-15 22:09:45.000000000 -0600@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@+#!/bin/bash++# Grab arguments++INDIR="$1"+shift+OUTDIR="$1"+shift+ARCH="$1"+shift++# Iterate through files listed on command line++for i in "$@"+do+	sed -r \+		-e 's/([ \t(])(__user|__force|__iomem)[ \t]/\1/g' \+		-e 's/__attribute_const__([ \t]|$)/\1/g' \+		-e 's@^#include <linux/compiler.h>@@' "$INDIR/$i" |+	scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__ - > "$OUTDIR/$i"+done++exit 0diff -r d9b501c91442 scripts/Makefile.headersinst--- a/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	Sun Dec 14 16:25:19 2008 -0800+++ b/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	Mon Dec 15 23:30:15 2008 -0600@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ quiet_cmd_install = INSTALL $(printdir) ($(words $(all-files))\                             file$(if $(word 2, $(all-files)),s))       cmd_install = \-        $(PERL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \-        $(PERL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \+		$(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \+		$(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \         touch $@  quiet_cmd_remove = REMOVE  $(unwanted)@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ 	@:  targets += $(install-file)-$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.pl $(input-files) FORCE+$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.sh $(input-files) FORCE 	$(if $(unwanted),$(call cmd,remove),) 	$(if $(wildcard $(dir $@)),,$(shell mkdir -p $(dir $@))) 	$(call if_changed,install)--- hg/scripts/headers_install.pl	2008-11-22 19:09:21.000000000 -0600+++ /dev/null	1970-01-01 00:00:00 -0600@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@-#!/usr/bin/perl -w-#-# headers_install prepare the listed header files for use in-# user space and copy the files to their destination.-#-# Usage: headers_install.pl readdir installdir arch [files...]-# readdir:    dir to open files-# installdir: dir to install the files-# arch:       current architecture-#             arch is used to force a reinstallation when the arch-#             changes because kbuild then detect a command line change.-# files:      list of files to check-#-# Step in preparation for users space:-# 1) Drop all use of compiler.h definitions-# 2) Drop include of compiler.h-# 3) Drop all sections defined out by __KERNEL__ (using unifdef)--use strict;--my ($readdir, $installdir, $arch, @files) = @ARGV;--my $unifdef = "scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__";--foreach my $file (@files) {-	local *INFILE;-	local *OUTFILE;-	my $tmpfile = "$installdir/$file.tmp";-	open(INFILE, "<$readdir/$file")-		or die "$readdir/$file: $!\n";-	open(OUTFILE, ">$tmpfile") or die "$tmpfile: $!\n";-	while (my $line = <INFILE>) {-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__user\s/$1/g;-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__force\s/$1/g;-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__iomem\s/$1/g;-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__\s/ /g;-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__$//g;-		$line =~ s/^#include <linux\/compiler.h>//;-		printf OUTFILE "%s", $line;-	}-	close OUTFILE;-	close INFILE;-	system $unifdef . " $tmpfile > $installdir/$file";-	unlink $tmpfile;-}-exit 0;\0ÿôèº{.nÇ+‰·Ÿ®‰­†+%ŠËÿ±éݶ\x17¥Šwÿº{.nÇ+‰·¥Š{±þG«éÿŠ{ayº\x1dʇڙë,j\a­¢f£¢·hšïêÿ‘êçz_è®\x03(­éšŽŠÝ¢j"ú\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿ¾\a«þG«éÿ¢¸?™¨è­Ú&£ø§~á¶iO•æ¬z·švØ^\x14\x04\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿÃ\fÿ¶ìÿ¢¸?–I¥

Re: [PATCH 2/3]: Remove perl from make headers_install

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 02:14:32AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> 
> Remove perl from make headers_install by replacing a perl script (doing
> a simple regex search and replace) with a smaller and faster shell script
> implementation.  The new shell script is a single for loop calling sed and
> piping its output through unifdef to produce the target file.

OK
> 
> Sam Ravnborg added this perl to 2.6.27.

Drop this part - this is just to make you happy and for no use for others.

> 
> Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> ---
> 
>  scripts/Makefile.headersinst |    6 ++--
>  scripts/headers_install.pl   |   46 ---------------------------------
>  scripts/headers_install.sh   |   23 ++++++++++++++++
>  3 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)
> 
> --- /dev/null	2008-11-21 04:46:41.000000000 -0600
> +++ b/scripts/headers_install.sh	2008-12-15 22:09:45.000000000 -0600
> @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
> +#!/bin/bash
> +
> +# Grab arguments
> +
> +INDIR="$1"
> +shift
> +OUTDIR="$1"
> +shift
> +ARCH="$1"
> +shift

Please add a short explanation what this file is used for
and what it does.
You can take more or less a direct copy from headers_install.pl

> +
> +# Iterate through files listed on command line
> +
> +for i in "$@"
> +do
> +	sed -r \
> +		-e 's/([ \t(])(__user|__force|__iomem)[ \t]/\1/g' \
> +		-e 's/__attribute_const__([ \t]|$)/\1/g' \
> +		-e 's@^#include <linux/compiler.h>@@' "$INDIR/$i" |
> +	scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__ - > "$OUTDIR/$i"
> +done
> +
> +exit 0
> diff -r d9b501c91442 scripts/Makefile.headersinst
> --- a/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	Sun Dec 14 16:25:19 2008 -0800
> +++ b/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	Mon Dec 15 23:30:15 2008 -0600
> @@ -44,8 +44,8 @@
>  quiet_cmd_install = INSTALL $(printdir) ($(words $(all-files))\
>                              file$(if $(word 2, $(all-files)),s))
>        cmd_install = \
> -        $(PERL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \
> -        $(PERL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \
> +		$(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \
> +		$(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \

Stick to the coding style i the file and do not add your own.
Makefile.headersinst uses tabs for commands and not for indent.



	Sam

[PATCH 3/3]: Convert mkcapflags.pl to mkcapflags.sh

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh.

This script generates kernel/cpu/capflags.c from include/asm/cpufeature.h.

Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.28.

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile      |    4 +--
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl |   32 ----------------------------
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh |   28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 34 deletions(-)

diff -ruN alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile
--- alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2008-12-28 18:10:51.000000000 -0600
@@ -23,10 +23,10 @@
 obj-$(CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC) += perfctr-watchdog.o
 
 quiet_cmd_mkcapflags = MKCAP   $@
-      cmd_mkcapflags = $(PERL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.pl $< $@
+      cmd_mkcapflags = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.sh $< $@
 
 cpufeature = $(src)/../../include/asm/cpufeature.h
 
 targets += capflags.c
-$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.pl FORCE
+$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.sh FORCE
 	$(call if_changed,mkcapflags)
diff -ruN alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl
--- alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl
-#
-# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm-x86/cpufeature.h
-#
-
-($in, $out) = @ARGV;
-
-open(IN, "< $in\0")   or die "$0: cannot open: $in: $!\n";
-open(OUT, "> $out\0") or die "$0: cannot create: $out: $!\n";
-
-print OUT "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>\n\n";
-print OUT "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {\n";
-
-while (defined($line = <IN>)) {
-	if ($line =~ /^\s*\#\s*define\s+(X86_FEATURE_(\S+))\s+(.*)$/) {
-		$macro = $1;
-		$feature = $2;
-		$tail = $3;
-		if ($tail =~ /\/\*\s*\"([^"]*)\".*\*\//) {
-			$feature = $1;
-		}
-
-		if ($feature ne '') {
-			printf OUT "\t%-32s = \"%s\",\n",
-				"[$macro]", "\L$feature";
-		}
-	}
-}
-print OUT "};\n";
-
-close(IN);
-close(OUT);
diff -ruN alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh
--- alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
+++ alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	2008-12-28 18:08:50.000000000 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+#
+# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm/cpufeature.h
+#
+
+IN=$1
+OUT=$2
+
+(
+	echo "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>"
+	echo ""
+	echo "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {"
+
+	# Iterate through any input lines starting with #define X86_FEATURE_
+	sed -n -e 's/\t/ /g' -e 's/^ *# *define *X86_FEATURE_//p' $IN |
+	while read i
+	do
+		# Name is everything up to the first whitespace
+		NAME="$(echo "$i" | sed 's/ .*//')"
+
+		# If the /* comment */ starts with a quote string, grab that.
+		VALUE="$(echo "$i" | sed -n 's@.*/\* *\("[^"]*"\).*\*/@\1@p')"
+		[ -z "$VALUE" ] && VALUE="\"$(echo "$NAME" | tr A-Z a-z)\""
+
+		[ "$VALUE" != '""' ] && echo "	[X86_FEATURE_$NAME] = $VALUE,"
+	done
+	echo "};"
+) > $OUT
\0

[PATCH 3/3]: Convert mkcapflags.pl to mkcapflags.sh

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh.
This script generates kernel/cpu/capflags.c from include/asm/cpufeature.h.
Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.28.
Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>---
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile      |    4 +-- arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl |   32 ---------------------------- arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh |   28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 34 deletions(-)
diff -ruN alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile--- alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2008-12-28 18:10:51.000000000 -0600@@ -23,10 +23,10 @@ obj-$(CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC) += perfctr-watchdog.o  quiet_cmd_mkcapflags = MKCAP   $@-      cmd_mkcapflags = $(PERL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.pl $< $@+      cmd_mkcapflags = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.sh $< $@  cpufeature = $(src)/../../include/asm/cpufeature.h  targets += capflags.c-$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.pl FORCE+$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.sh FORCE 	$(call if_changed,mkcapflags)diff -ruN alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl--- alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@-#!/usr/bin/perl-#-# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm-x86/cpufeature.h-#--($in, $out) = @ARGV;--open(IN, "< $in\0")   or die "$0: cannot open: $in: $!\n";-open(OUT, "> $out\0") or die "$0: cannot create: $out: $!\n";--print OUT "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>\n\n";-print OUT "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {\n";--while (defined($line = <IN>)) {-	if ($line =~ /^\s*\#\s*define\s+(X86_FEATURE_(\S+))\s+(.*)$/) {-		$macro = $1;-		$feature = $2;-		$tail = $3;-		if ($tail =~ /\/\*\s*\"([^"]*)\".*\*\//) {-			$feature = $1;-		}--		if ($feature ne '') {-			printf OUT "\t%-32s = \"%s\",\n",-				"[$macro]", "\L$feature";-		}-	}-}-print OUT "};\n";--close(IN);-close(OUT);diff -ruN alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh--- alt-linux/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600+++ alt-linux2/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	2008-12-28 18:08:50.000000000 -0600@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@+#!/bin/bash+#+# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm/cpufeature.h+#++IN=$1+OUT=$2++(+	echo "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>"+	echo ""+	echo "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {"++	# Iterate through any input lines starting with #define X86_FEATURE_+	sed -n -e 's/\t/ /g' -e 's/^ *# *define *X86_FEATURE_//p' $IN |+	while read i+	do+		# Name is everything up to the first whitespace+		NAME="$(echo "$i" | sed 's/ .*//')"++		# If the /* comment */ starts with a quote string, grab that.+		VALUE="$(echo "$i" | sed -n 's@.*/\* *\("[^"]*"\).*\*/@\1@p')"+		[ -z "$VALUE" ] && VALUE="\"$(echo "$NAME" | tr A-Z a-z)\""++		[ "$VALUE" != '""' ] && echo "	[X86_FEATURE_$NAME] = $VALUE,"+	done+	echo "};"+) > $OUT\0ÿôèº{.nÇ+‰·Ÿ®‰­†+%ŠËÿ±éݶ\x17¥Šwÿº{.nÇ+‰·¥Š{±þG«éÿŠ{ayº\x1dʇڙë,j\a­¢f£¢·hšïêÿ‘êçz_è®\x03(­éšŽŠÝ¢j"ú\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿ¾\a«þG«éÿ¢¸?™¨è­Ú&£ø§~á¶iO•æ¬z·švØ^\x14\x04\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿÃ\fÿ¶ìÿ¢¸?–I¥

Re: [PATCH 3/3]: Convert mkcapflags.pl to mkcapflags.sh

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 02:15:36AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> 
> Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh.
> 
> This script generates kernel/cpu/capflags.c from include/asm/cpufeature.h.
OK

> Peter Anvin added this perl to 2.6.28.
Drop it.

Implementation looks OK.

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Arkadiusz Miskiewicz]

On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build
> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl
> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a
> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
> kernel, and nothing else.

And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't need/have 
bash. /bin/sh should be enough.

Heh,
-- 
Arkadiusz Mi≈õkiewicz        PLD/Linux Team
arekm / maven.pl            http://ftp.pld-linux.org/

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Arkadiusz Miskiewicz]

On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build
> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl
> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a
> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
> kernel, and nothing else.

And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't need/have 
bash. /bin/sh should be enough.

Heh,
-- 
Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz        PLD/Linux Team
arekm / maven.pl            http://ftp.pld-linux.org/

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Christoph Hellwig]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> > Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
> > building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build
> > system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl
> > and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a
> > kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
> > system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
> > kernel, and nothing else.
> 
> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't need/have 
> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.

*nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict posix
/bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
seems reasonable.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Alejandro Mery]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1276 bytes --]

Christoph Hellwig escribió:
> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
>   
>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>>     
>>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build
>>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl
>>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a
>>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
>>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
>>> kernel, and nothing else.
>>>       
>> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't need/have 
>> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
>>     
>
> *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict posix
> /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
> seems reasonable.
well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run on a
constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should be
avoided too.

I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c helper toy.

Thank Rob for reopening the topic.

Alejandro Mery


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Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:16 AM, Alejandro Mery wrote:

> Christoph Hellwig escribió:
>> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
>>
>>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>>>
>>>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
>>>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>>>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on  
>>>> the build
>>>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written  
>>>> in perl
>>>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually  
>>>> building a
>>>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a  
>>>> minimal
>>>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and  
>>>> the Linux
>>>> kernel, and nothing else.
>>>>
>>> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't  
>>> need/have
>>> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
>>>
>>
>> *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict  
>> posix
>> /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
>> seems reasonable.

>>
> well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run  
> on a
> constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should  
> be
> avoided too.
>
> I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c  
> helper toy.
>
> Thank Rob for reopening the topic.
>
> Alejandro Mery

And actually, one of the things that I just recalled, is that several  
of the Perl configure scripts in order to actually build itself, rely  
on Bourne shell calls. So the argument to require a strict POSIX+sed 
+awk implementation rather than Perl to build the kernel, fails, since  
you already require some variant of shell greater than strict POSIX / 
bin/sh to build Perl. So this is one less dependency.

Also, attempting to cross-compile Perl, is indeed a nightmare.

--
Mark Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Matt Keenan]

On Fri, 2009-01-02 at 04:30 -0600, Mark Miller wrote:
> On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:16 AM, Alejandro Mery wrote:
> 
> > Christoph Hellwig escribió:
> >> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
> >>>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
> >>>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on  
> >>>> the build
> >>>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written  
> >>>> in perl
> >>>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually  
> >>>> building a
> >>>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a  
> >>>> minimal
> >>>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and  
> >>>> the Linux
> >>>> kernel, and nothing else.
> >>>>
> >>> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't  
> >>> need/have
> >>> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
> >>>
> >>
> >> *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict  
> >> posix
> >> /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
> >> seems reasonable.
> 
> >>
> > well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run  
> > on a
> > constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should  
> > be
> > avoided too.
> >
> > I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c  
> > helper toy.
> >
> > Thank Rob for reopening the topic.
> >
> > Alejandro Mery
> 
> And actually, one of the things that I just recalled, is that several  
> of the Perl configure scripts in order to actually build itself, rely  
> on Bourne shell calls. So the argument to require a strict POSIX+sed 
> +awk implementation rather than Perl to build the kernel, fails, since  
> you already require some variant of shell greater than strict POSIX / 
> bin/sh to build Perl. So this is one less dependency.
> 
> Also, attempting to cross-compile Perl, is indeed a nightmare.
> 

Having cross compiled Perl, on to a Unix with a brain dead third party
TCP/IP no less, only 4 years after starting to use Unix / Linux I can
attest that it is not that difficult to cross compile. Heck it even runs
on those weird Crays that don't know which byte sex they are.

Matt

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Matt Keenan]

On Fri, 2009-01-02 at 04:30 -0600, Mark Miller wrote:
> On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:16 AM, Alejandro Mery wrote:
> 
> > Christoph Hellwig escribió:
> >> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
> >>>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
> >>>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on  
> >>>> the build
> >>>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written  
> >>>> in perl
> >>>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually  
> >>>> building a
> >>>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a  
> >>>> minimal
> >>>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and  
> >>>> the Linux
> >>>> kernel, and nothing else.
> >>>>
> >>> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't  
> >>> need/have
> >>> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
> >>>
> >>
> >> *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict  
> >> posix
> >> /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
> >> seems reasonable.
> 
> >>
> > well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run  
> > on a
> > constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should  
> > be
> > avoided too.
> >
> > I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c  
> > helper toy.
> >
> > Thank Rob for reopening the topic.
> >
> > Alejandro Mery
> 
> And actually, one of the things that I just recalled, is that several  
> of the Perl configure scripts in order to actually build itself, rely  
> on Bourne shell calls. So the argument to require a strict POSIX+sed 
> +awk implementation rather than Perl to build the kernel, fails, since  
> you already require some variant of shell greater than strict POSIX / 
> bin/sh to build Perl. So this is one less dependency.
> 
> Also, attempting to cross-compile Perl, is indeed a nightmare.
> 

Having cross compiled Perl, on to a Unix with a brain dead third party
TCP/IP no less, only 4 years after starting to use Unix / Linux I can
attest that it is not that difficult to cross compile. Heck it even runs
on those weird Crays that don't know which byte sex they are.

Matt

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Måns Rullgård]

Alejandro Mery <amery@opensde.org> writes:

> Christoph Hellwig escribió:
>> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
>>   
>>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>>>     
>>>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>>>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build
>>>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl
>>>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a
>>>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
>>>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
>>>> kernel, and nothing else.
>>>>       
>>> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't need/have 
>>> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
>>>     
>>
>> *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict posix
>> /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
>> seems reasonable.
> well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run on a
> constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should be
> avoided too.
>
> I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c helper toy.

The $(( ... )) construct is standard POSIX shell syntax, see
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_04

Bash supports $[ ... ] as an alternate syntax for the same thing.
Perhaps you were thinking of that.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mans@mansr.com

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Pádraig Brady]

Måns Rullgård wrote:
> Alejandro Mery <amery@opensde.org> writes:
> 
>> I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c helper toy.
> 
> The $(( ... )) construct is standard POSIX shell syntax, see
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_04
> 
> Bash supports $[ ... ] as an alternate syntax for the same thing.
> Perhaps you were thinking of that.

I think the misconception that $(( ... )) is a bashism is caused by
the wrong highlighting defaults chosen by vim. To fix this add this to ~/.vimrc

let g:is_posix = 1

That will also allow you to use the $(command) POSIX construct.
BTW, the vim syntax maintainers don't agree with changing this default:
http://groups.google.com/group/vim_dev/browse_thread/thread/41139a32772b2f5f

cheers,
Pádraig.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Jamie Lokier]

Pádraig Brady wrote:
> > The $(( ... )) construct is standard POSIX shell syntax, see
> > http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_04
> > 
> > Bash supports $[ ... ] as an alternate syntax for the same thing.
> > Perhaps you were thinking of that.
> 
> I think the misconception that $(( ... )) is a bashism is caused by
> the wrong highlighting defaults chosen by vim.

I think the misconception is because traditional unix bourne shells
don't implement that construct.  I just tried it on a few machines,
and it failed on 4 of them.  Admittedly, the only up to date one is
running Solaris 10; the others are older unixes that you're unlikely
to build Linux on.

-- Jamie

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Måns Rullgård]

Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org> writes:

> Pádraig Brady wrote:
>> > The $(( ... )) construct is standard POSIX shell syntax, see
>> > http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/000095399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_04
>> > 
>> > Bash supports $[ ... ] as an alternate syntax for the same thing.
>> > Perhaps you were thinking of that.
>> 
>> I think the misconception that $(( ... )) is a bashism is caused by
>> the wrong highlighting defaults chosen by vim.
>
> I think the misconception is because traditional unix bourne shells
> don't implement that construct.  I just tried it on a few machines,
> and it failed on 4 of them.  Admittedly, the only up to date one is
> running Solaris 10; the others are older unixes that you're unlikely
> to build Linux on.

On Solaris, /usr/xpg4/bin/sh is usually a POSIX-compliant shell.  I
don't know how long it has been there.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mans@mansr.com

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 04:16:53 Alejandro Mery wrote:
> Christoph Hellwig escribió:
> > On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git
> >>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 ) building a Linux kernel
> >>> never required perl to be installed on the build system.  (Various
> >>> development and debugging scripts were written in perl and python and
> >>> such, but they weren't involved in actually building a kernel.)
> >>> Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system
> >>> built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
> >>> kernel, and nothing else.
> >>
> >> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't
> >> need/have bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
> >
> > *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict posix
> > /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
> > seems reasonable.
>
> well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run on a
> constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should be
> avoided too.
>
> I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c helper
> toy.

No, $[ ] is the bashism, $(( )) is susv3:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_06_04

I intentionally switched from $[ ] to $(( )) to make dash work.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 04:16:53 Alejandro Mery wrote:
> Christoph Hellwig escribió:
> > On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git
> >>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 ) building a Linux kernel
> >>> never required perl to be installed on the build system.  (Various
> >>> development and debugging scripts were written in perl and python and
> >>> such, but they weren't involved in actually building a kernel.)
> >>> Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system
> >>> built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
> >>> kernel, and nothing else.
> >>
> >> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't
> >> need/have bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
> >
> > *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict posix
> > /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
> > seems reasonable.
>
> well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run on a
> constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should be
> avoided too.
>
> I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c helper
> toy.

No, $[ ] is the bashism, $(( )) is susv3:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_06_04

I intentionally switched from $[ ] to $(( )) to make dash work.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 05:15:32AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Friday 02 January 2009 04:16:53 Alejandro Mery wrote:
> > Christoph Hellwig escribió:
> > > On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> > >> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> > >>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git
> > >>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 ) building a Linux kernel
> > >>> never required perl to be installed on the build system.  (Various
> > >>> development and debugging scripts were written in perl and python and
> > >>> such, but they weren't involved in actually building a kernel.)
> > >>> Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system
> > >>> built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
> > >>> kernel, and nothing else.
> > >>
> > >> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't
> > >> need/have bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
> > >
> > > *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict posix
> > > /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
> > > seems reasonable.
> >
> > well, bash is not worse as bash is trivial to cross-compile to run on a
> > constrained sandbox and perl is a nightmare, but I agree bash should be
> > avoided too.
> >
> > I think the $(( ... )) bash-ism can be replaced with a simple .c helper
> > toy.
> 
> No, $[ ] is the bashism, $(( )) is susv3:
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_06_04
> 
> I intentionally switched from $[ ] to $(( )) to make dash work.
The focus on this patch is to create a minimal set of
dependencies so please document what dependencies / compatibility
this patch introduces.

It is not obvious for me for example if the script
requires sh, bash or dash or whatever.

The shebang is so often wrong that this is not docuemnting such
things.

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 03:49:34 Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 10:26:37AM +0100, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> > On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> > > Before 2.6.25 (specifically git
> > > bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 ) building a Linux kernel
> > > never required perl to be installed on the build system.  (Various
> > > development and debugging scripts were written in perl and python and
> > > such, but they weren't involved in actually building a kernel.)
> > > Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system
> > > built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux
> > > kernel, and nothing else.
> >
> > And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't
> > need/have bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
>
> *nod*  bash is in many ways a worse requirement than perl.  strict posix
> /bin/sh + awk + sed would be nicest, but if that's too much work perl
> seems reasonable.

The scripts should work with dash (modulo the one that needs 64 bit math, 
which dash only provides on a 64 bit host), or with busybox ash (which can 
provide 64 bit math on 32 bit hosts just like bash can).  I'll explicitly 
retest both of those when I respin the patches in the <strike>morning</strike> 
afternoon.

(And yes I thought about writing my own arbitrary precision arithmetic shell 
functions, but it really didn't seem worth the complexity since the only 32 
bit Linux distros I've seen that install dash also install bash by default.  I 
just put in a test for 32 bit math so it can spot it and fail, on the off 
chance you're running a 32 bit host with dash after explicitly uninstalling 
bash.  All the embedded 32 bit ones that try to act as development 
environments use busybox ash, or more often just install bash.)

That said, how is bash _worse_ than perl?  (Where's the second implementation 
of perl?  Even Python had jython, but perl has... what?  The attempt to rebase 
on Parrot went down in flames...)

If the argument is that "depending on a specific shell implementation is as 
bad as depending on the one and only implementation of perl", that argument I 
can at least follow, even if it doesn't actually apply in this case.  But 
where does "worse" come in?

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Theodore Tso]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 06:56:31AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote: 
> That said, how is bash _worse_ than perl?  (Where's the second
> implementation of perl?  Even Python had jython, but perl
> has... what?  The attempt to rebase on Parrot went down in
> flames...)

(1) bash implies POSIX extensions; perl is actually quite portable.

(2) There are distributions that install with perl by default but not
bash; they use dash for speed reasons.

Sounds like though modulo dealing with 64-bit arithmetic, your patches
are mostly dash/POSIX.2 comformant, so you're probably mostly good on
that front once you address the 32/64-bit issues.  I'd also suggest
explicitly add a reminder to the shell scripts' comments to avoid
bashisms for maximum portability, to remind developers in the future
who might try to change the shell scripts to watch out for portability
issues.

							- Ted

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Jamie Lokier]

Theodore Tso wrote:
> perl is actually quite portable.

Portability aside, Perl has another fun issue.  The number of times
I've had a Perl script break when copied to a newer system which had a
newer version of Perl is... noticable.

> I'd also suggest explicitly add a reminder to the shell scripts'
> comments to avoid bashisms for maximum portability, to remind
> developers in the future who might try to change the shell scripts
> to watch out for portability issues.

You can force Bash into POSIX mode if that's helpful.

-- Jamie

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Jamie Lokier]

Theodore Tso wrote:
> perl is actually quite portable.

Portability aside, Perl has another fun issue.  The number of times
I've had a Perl script break when copied to a newer system which had a
newer version of Perl is... noticable.

> I'd also suggest explicitly add a reminder to the shell scripts'
> comments to avoid bashisms for maximum portability, to remind
> developers in the future who might try to change the shell scripts
> to watch out for portability issues.

You can force Bash into POSIX mode if that's helpful.

-- Jamie

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 08:04:09 Theodore Tso wrote:
> Sounds like though modulo dealing with 64-bit arithmetic, your patches
> are mostly dash/POSIX.2 comformant, so you're probably mostly good on
> that front once you address the 32/64-bit issues.  I'd also suggest
> explicitly add a reminder to the shell scripts' comments to avoid
> bashisms for maximum portability, to remind developers in the future
> who might try to change the shell scripts to watch out for portability
> issues.

I changed the scripts to start with #!/bin/sh and retested under dash.

If scripts say #!/bin/sh when they actually need bash, or say #!/bin/bash when 
they work with dash, that should probably be fixed.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 3:26 AM, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:

> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the  
>> build
>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in  
>> perl
>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a
>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and  
>> the Linux
>> kernel, and nothing else.
>
> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't  
> need/have
> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.

Which distros only have /bin/sh which do not have Perl? I'm honestly  
curious.

> -- 
> Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz        PLD/Linux Team
> arekm / maven.pl            http://ftp.pld-linux.org/

--
Mark Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 3:26 AM, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:

> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the  
>> build
>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in  
>> perl
>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a
>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and  
>> the Linux
>> kernel, and nothing else.
>
> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't  
> need/have
> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.

Which distros only have /bin/sh which do not have Perl? I'm honestly  
curious.

> -- 
> Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz        PLD/Linux Team
> arekm / maven.pl            http://ftp.pld-linux.org/

--
Mark Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:02 AM, Mark Miller wrote:

>
> On Jan 2, 2009, at 3:26 AM, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
>
>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
>>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the  
>>> build
>>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written  
>>> in perl
>>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually  
>>> building a
>>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a  
>>> minimal
>>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and  
>>> the Linux
>>> kernel, and nothing else.
>>
>> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't  
>> need/have
>> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
>
> Which distros only have /bin/sh which do not have Perl? I'm honestly  
> curious.

That is, *do* have Perl. Typo there.

>
>
>> -- 
>> Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz        PLD/Linux Team
>> arekm / maven.pl            http://ftp.pld-linux.org/

--
Mark Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:02 AM, Mark Miller wrote:

>
> On Jan 2, 2009, at 3:26 AM, Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
>
>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
>>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the  
>>> build
>>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written  
>>> in perl
>>> and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually  
>>> building a
>>> kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a  
>>> minimal
>>> system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and  
>>> the Linux
>>> kernel, and nothing else.
>>
>> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't  
>> need/have
>> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
>
> Which distros only have /bin/sh which do not have Perl? I'm honestly  
> curious.

That is, *do* have Perl. Typo there.

>
>
>> -- 
>> Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz        PLD/Linux Team
>> arekm / maven.pl            http://ftp.pld-linux.org/

--
Mark Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 03:26:37 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> > Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2
> > ) building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the
> > build system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in
> > perl and python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building
> > a kernel.) Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal
> > system built from gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the
> > Linux kernel, and nothing else.
>
> And now bash is going to be required... while some distros don't need/have
> bash. /bin/sh should be enough.
>
> Heh,

I believe all three scripts run under dash and busybox ash.  (The timeconst.sh 
one needs 64 bit math which dash only provides on 64 bit hosts, which is a 
regression from Red Hat 9 in 2003 by the way.  Busybox ash can also provide 64 
bit math on 32 bit hosts, and the script should run with that just fine if you 
haven't got bash and that's what your "sh" in the path is.)

The makefiles execute those scripts via CONFIG_SHELL, not via the #!/blah line 
at the start, so it's largely irrelevant what gets put there anyway.  If you 
haven't got bash installed it'll use "sh", which should work with dash on a 64 
bit host or with busybox ash.  (That's why that one file has a test to make 
sure 64 bit math _does_ work.  The only Linux development environment I'm 
aware of where that test would trigger is if you use a 32 bit ubuntu and go 
out of your way to _uninstall_ bash.  Even Cygwin uses bash.)

Beyond that, "find linux -type f | xargs grep bin/bash | wc" comes up with 38 
instances (admittedly half of 'em in Documentation, but lots in scripts, and 
makefiles, and defconfigs, at least one hardwired in C code.)  So this would 
not a _new_ dependency.

By the way, what Linux distros install a compiler toolchain but not bash?  I'm 
curious.  (Even after Ubuntu moved #!/bin/sh to point to dash, it still 
installs bash as part of the default environment, even if you don't install 
development tools.)  You've built the kernel on this system before?

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Matthieu CASTET]

Rob Landley a écrit :
> On Friday 02 January 2009 03:26:37 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>>
>> Heh,
> 
> I believe all three scripts run under dash and busybox ash.  (The timeconst.sh 
> one needs 64 bit math which dash only provides on 64 bit hosts, which is a 
> regression from Red Hat 9 in 2003 by the way.
With dash 0.5.4-12 (from debian sid), I seems I got the 64 bit math for
32 bit hosts :
$ uname -m
i686
$ dash -c 'echo $((1<<32))'
4294967296


Matthieu

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Matthieu CASTET]

Rob Landley a écrit :
> On Friday 02 January 2009 03:26:37 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
>> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
>>
>> Heh,
> 
> I believe all three scripts run under dash and busybox ash.  (The timeconst.sh 
> one needs 64 bit math which dash only provides on 64 bit hosts, which is a 
> regression from Red Hat 9 in 2003 by the way.
With dash 0.5.4-12 (from debian sid), I seems I got the 64 bit math for
32 bit hosts :
$ uname -m
i686
$ dash -c 'echo $((1<<32))'
4294967296


Matthieu

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 10:04:08 Matthieu CASTET wrote:
> Rob Landley a écrit :
> > On Friday 02 January 2009 03:26:37 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>
> >> Heh,
> >
> > I believe all three scripts run under dash and busybox ash.  (The
> > timeconst.sh one needs 64 bit math which dash only provides on 64 bit
> > hosts, which is a regression from Red Hat 9 in 2003 by the way.
>
> With dash 0.5.4-12 (from debian sid), I seems I got the 64 bit math for
> 32 bit hosts :
> $ uname -m
> i686
> $ dash -c 'echo $((1<<32))'
> 4294967296

Cool.

The "relatively recent" 32 bit image I have lying around for testing purposes 
is xubuntu 7.10, and when dash was first introduced into ubuntu it had 
_buckets_ of bugs.  (If you backgrounded a task with & and then hit ctrl-z on 
the command line, it would suspend the backgrounded task.  It was Not Ready 
for Prime Time in a big way.)  Lack of 64 bit math could easily be one more.  
(It _is_ a regression vs Red Hat 9.)

The dash in ubuntu 8.10 seems to have a lot of the more obvious problems 
worked out.  Good to know. :)

That said, while testing the new round of patches against various shells and 
making it reproduce the full set of time constants that the old perl script 
kept cached values for (24, 32, 48, 64, 100, 122, 128, 200, 250, 256, 300, 
512, 1000, 1024, and 1200 hz), I found a bug.

The first patch is  miscalculating USEC_TO_HZ_ADJ32 for 24 HZ and 122 HZ.  All 
the other values are fine.)  It's an integer overflow.  The GCD of 24 and 
1000000 is 8, so that's 17 significant bits with a shift of 47... which is 
exactly 64 bits, but the math is _signed_, so it goes boing.

For the record, the reason I can't just pregenerate all these suckers on a 
system that's got an arbitrary precision calculator (ala dc) and then just 
ship the resulting header files (more or less the what the first version of 
that first patch did) is that some architectures (arm omap and and arm at91) 
allow you to enter arbitrary HZ values in kconfig.  (Their help text says that 
in many cases values that aren't powers of two won't work, but nothing 
enforces this.)  So if we didn't have the capability to dynamically generate 
these, you could enter a .config value that would break the build.

I'd be willing to use dc in the script if A) it was mentioned in SUSv3 (it's 
not, although bc is), B) the version of dc in busybox wasn't crap (it's 
floating point rather than arbitrary precision, and doesn't implement the left 
shift operator).  The reason I'm not looking more closely at what SUSv3 has to 
say about bc is that A) it claims to be an entire programming language, which 
is definitely overkill for this B) busybox hasn't bothered to implement it so 
it can't be all that widely used anymore.

I'll fix this and resubmit, it just wasn't ready last night.  (If the merge 
window is closing soon I could resubmit the other two with Sam's suggestions 
and resubmit this one next time 'round, but it was only a couple days to write 
in the first place, once I finally figured out what the perl version was 
trying to _do_...)

I believe ADJ32 is the only operation with any potential to overflow.  The 
pathological case for SHIFT is HZ 1, which for USEC conversions would give a 
shift around 52 (32 significant bits plus 20 bits to divide by 1000000), but 
MUL32 still wouldn't overflow because the shift loop stops when it finds 32 
significant bits, and any larger HZ value would produce a smaller shift.  The 
problem with ADJ32 is it uses the MUL32 shift value, so a small $TO (24 HZ) 
with a big $FROM (1000000 USEC, 19 signficant bits) and a small Greatest 
Common Denominator (in this case 8) can overflow 64 bits.  Pathological case 
is still HZ 1.  (Or any other smallish prime number.)  If I make that work, 
everything else has to.

So anyway, it's not _arbitrary_ precision math.  It's more like 32+20+20=72 
bits, and I can probably fake that pretty easily by breaking a couple of 
operations into two stages...

Fallen a bit behind on the thread since I noticed this and went off to code, 
I'll try to catch up later today.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 10:04:08 Matthieu CASTET wrote:
> Rob Landley a écrit :
> > On Friday 02 January 2009 03:26:37 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>
> >> Heh,
> >
> > I believe all three scripts run under dash and busybox ash.  (The
> > timeconst.sh one needs 64 bit math which dash only provides on 64 bit
> > hosts, which is a regression from Red Hat 9 in 2003 by the way.
>
> With dash 0.5.4-12 (from debian sid), I seems I got the 64 bit math for
> 32 bit hosts :
> $ uname -m
> i686
> $ dash -c 'echo $((1<<32))'
> 4294967296

Cool.

The "relatively recent" 32 bit image I have lying around for testing purposes 
is xubuntu 7.10, and when dash was first introduced into ubuntu it had 
_buckets_ of bugs.  (If you backgrounded a task with & and then hit ctrl-z on 
the command line, it would suspend the backgrounded task.  It was Not Ready 
for Prime Time in a big way.)  Lack of 64 bit math could easily be one more.  
(It _is_ a regression vs Red Hat 9.)

The dash in ubuntu 8.10 seems to have a lot of the more obvious problems 
worked out.  Good to know. :)

That said, while testing the new round of patches against various shells and 
making it reproduce the full set of time constants that the old perl script 
kept cached values for (24, 32, 48, 64, 100, 122, 128, 200, 250, 256, 300, 
512, 1000, 1024, and 1200 hz), I found a bug.

The first patch is  miscalculating USEC_TO_HZ_ADJ32 for 24 HZ and 122 HZ.  All 
the other values are fine.)  It's an integer overflow.  The GCD of 24 and 
1000000 is 8, so that's 17 significant bits with a shift of 47... which is 
exactly 64 bits, but the math is _signed_, so it goes boing.

For the record, the reason I can't just pregenerate all these suckers on a 
system that's got an arbitrary precision calculator (ala dc) and then just 
ship the resulting header files (more or less the what the first version of 
that first patch did) is that some architectures (arm omap and and arm at91) 
allow you to enter arbitrary HZ values in kconfig.  (Their help text says that 
in many cases values that aren't powers of two won't work, but nothing 
enforces this.)  So if we didn't have the capability to dynamically generate 
these, you could enter a .config value that would break the build.

I'd be willing to use dc in the script if A) it was mentioned in SUSv3 (it's 
not, although bc is), B) the version of dc in busybox wasn't crap (it's 
floating point rather than arbitrary precision, and doesn't implement the left 
shift operator).  The reason I'm not looking more closely at what SUSv3 has to 
say about bc is that A) it claims to be an entire programming language, which 
is definitely overkill for this B) busybox hasn't bothered to implement it so 
it can't be all that widely used anymore.

I'll fix this and resubmit, it just wasn't ready last night.  (If the merge 
window is closing soon I could resubmit the other two with Sam's suggestions 
and resubmit this one next time 'round, but it was only a couple days to write 
in the first place, once I finally figured out what the perl version was 
trying to _do_...)

I believe ADJ32 is the only operation with any potential to overflow.  The 
pathological case for SHIFT is HZ 1, which for USEC conversions would give a 
shift around 52 (32 significant bits plus 20 bits to divide by 1000000), but 
MUL32 still wouldn't overflow because the shift loop stops when it finds 32 
significant bits, and any larger HZ value would produce a smaller shift.  The 
problem with ADJ32 is it uses the MUL32 shift value, so a small $TO (24 HZ) 
with a big $FROM (1000000 USEC, 19 signficant bits) and a small Greatest 
Common Denominator (in this case 8) can overflow 64 bits.  Pathological case 
is still HZ 1.  (Or any other smallish prime number.)  If I make that work, 
everything else has to.

So anyway, it's not _arbitrary_ precision math.  It's more like 32+20+20=72 
bits, and I can probably fake that pretty easily by breaking a couple of 
operations into two stages...

Fallen a bit behind on the thread since I noticed this and went off to code, 
I'll try to catch up later today.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Sam Ravnborg]

> 
> I'll fix this and resubmit, it just wasn't ready last night.  (If the merge 
> window is closing soon I could resubmit the other two with Sam's suggestions 
> and resubmit this one next time 'round, but it was only a couple days to write 
> in the first place, once I finally figured out what the perl version was 
> trying to _do_...)

For kbuild only fixes and trivial stuff will be merged until next merge window.
Neither of the three patches fall into that category.

With respect to your three patches the plan is to:
- add the updated timeconst patch to kbuild-next
- add the updated cpu-feature patch to kbuild-next

- the patch touching headers_install will not be merged.
  The way forward for headers_install is to combine the
  unifdef feature and the header modifications.
  And this must be in a single program that can process
  all headers in one go so the install process becomes so fast
  that we do not worry about if it was done before or not.
  Then we can avoid all the .* files in the directory
  where we isntall the headers.
  The program is a prime candidate for a small C program
  and I hope someone can take the challenge to write it.

  Migrating from perl to shell does not help us here
  and the shell version was less readable than the perl version.

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[H. Peter Anvin]

Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> With respect to your three patches the plan is to:
> - add the updated timeconst patch to kbuild-next

If you add this, you take the responsibility for the breakages that will
occur.  The reason his patch is "simpler" is because he removes the
arbitrary-precision arithmetic, and simply hopes that the system
utilities that he uses uses an integer size which happens to be big enough.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 14:50:43 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > With respect to your three patches the plan is to:
> > - add the updated timeconst patch to kbuild-next
>
> If you add this, you take the responsibility for the breakages that will
> occur.  The reason his patch is "simpler" is because he removes the
> arbitrary-precision arithmetic, and simply hopes that the system
> utilities that he uses uses an integer size which happens to be big enough.

Actually once I _noticed_ that ADJ32 could overflow (none of the other values 
can), it was fairly easy to prevent it from doing so.  I added some comments 
analyzing the pathological case (HZ 1, assuming nobody's interested in 
HZ>1000000).

> 	-hpa

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 14:10:59 Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > I'll fix this and resubmit, it just wasn't ready last night.  (If the
> > merge window is closing soon I could resubmit the other two with Sam's
> > suggestions and resubmit this one next time 'round, but it was only a
> > couple days to write in the first place, once I finally figured out what
> > the perl version was trying to _do_...)
>
> For kbuild only fixes and trivial stuff will be merged until next merge
> window. Neither of the three patches fall into that category.

*shrug*  I poke my head into kernel development every few months, and have 
just enough familiarity with it to remember that "changes go in during the 
merge window".  Seemed a good time to post 'em.

> With respect to your three patches the plan is to:
> - add the updated timeconst patch to kbuild-next
> - add the updated cpu-feature patch to kbuild-next
>
> - the patch touching headers_install will not be merged.
>   The way forward for headers_install is to combine the
>   unifdef feature and the header modifications.

Since you're turning down an existing patch in favor of a theoretical patch, I 
assume you have plans to do this yourself?

>   And this must be in a single program that can process
>   all headers in one go so the install process becomes so fast
>   that we do not worry about if it was done before or not.
>   Then we can avoid all the .* files in the directory
>   where we isntall the headers.

What if they run out of disk space halfway through writing a file and thus it 
creates a short file (or a 0 length file where the dentry was created but no 
blocks could be allocated for the write)?

I expected headers_install to overwrite destination files and create 
directories with -p, so if you interrupt it you can just re-run it again with 
the same arguments and it could install everything again cleanly over existing 
partial output.  I take it this isn't what's happening, or that isn't 
sufficient somehow?

I didn't look too closely at what the makefile was doing (it makes my eyes 
bleed), I just rewrote the perl script and changed the call.  I could try to 
upgrade the script to not need the makefile to tell it what files to work on, 
and just take the appropriate top level include directory and the output 
directory and figure out which files it needs to operate on by itself so it 
_does_ work that way.  Figuring out where the make file is getting this info 
from now shouldn't be too much harder than reading perl scripts and figuring 
out what they're doing.

Not during this merge window, though.

>   The program is a prime candidate for a small C program
>   and I hope someone can take the challenge to write it.

Good luck with that.  Having written most of the busybox sed implementation, 
and before that having written my own regex implementation back under OS/2, 
I've pretty much gotten my fill of doing regexes in C, at least without a good 
reason.

I suppose if I was feeling really bored I could try to implement unifdef as a 
sed script, but the only way to get a single invocation of sed to work on a 
bunch of individual files coherently is to use -i mode, which A) ain't in 
susv3 (although busybox sed supports it), B) would involve a cp of all the 
files to the destination first, which is kind of ugly.

>   Migrating from perl to shell does not help us here
>   and the shell version was less readable than the perl version.

The shell version is less readable but you never noticed that the perl version 
isn't using its $ARCH argument?  *shrug*  Ok.

I can try to make the shell version more readable, and more powerful.  It's 
already noticeably faster than the perl version.  I have no objections to 
making unifdef do all of this, I just haven't got any interest either.

> 	Sam

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 07:45:34PM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> > With respect to your three patches the plan is to:
> > - add the updated timeconst patch to kbuild-next
> > - add the updated cpu-feature patch to kbuild-next
> >
> > - the patch touching headers_install will not be merged.
> >   The way forward for headers_install is to combine the
> >   unifdef feature and the header modifications.
> 
> Since you're turning down an existing patch in favor of a theoretical patch, I 
> assume you have plans to do this yourself?

If noone else beats me I will do so - yes.
> 
> >   And this must be in a single program that can process
> >   all headers in one go so the install process becomes so fast
> >   that we do not worry about if it was done before or not.
> >   Then we can avoid all the .* files in the directory
> >   where we isntall the headers.
> 
> What if they run out of disk space halfway through writing a file and thus it 
> creates a short file (or a 0 length file where the dentry was created but no 
> blocks could be allocated for the write)?

Then they fail and make will know. Then may leave a file or 100
but it still failed. At next run everything will be done right
assuming the culprint has been fixed.

> I can try to make the shell version more readable, and more powerful.  It's 
> already noticeably faster than the perl version.  I have no objections to 
> making unifdef do all of this, I just haven't got any interest either.

I have no interest in merging a shell version.
I clearly expressed above that we need a _single_ program doing
all of the preparations and we do not need a reimplmentatio of the
current headers_install.
I also explained why.

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Sunday 04 January 2009 02:09:31 Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 07:45:34PM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> > Since you're turning down an existing patch in favor of a theoretical
> > patch, I assume you have plans to do this yourself?
>
> If noone else beats me I will do so - yes.

Ok.

> > >   And this must be in a single program that can process
> > >   all headers in one go so the install process becomes so fast
> > >   that we do not worry about if it was done before or not.
> > >   Then we can avoid all the .* files in the directory
> > >   where we isntall the headers.
> >
> > What if they run out of disk space halfway through writing a file and
> > thus it creates a short file (or a 0 length file where the dentry was
> > created but no blocks could be allocated for the write)?
>
> Then they fail and make will know. Then may leave a file or 100
> but it still failed. At next run everything will be done right
> assuming the culprint has been fixed.

Ok, so the important thing is propagating failures up to the exit code, then?

When making this patch I hit a problem that the exit code of "unifdef" seems 
to depend on whether it found anything to remove within the file it was 
processing, so when I changed the caller to actually care about its exit code 
it spontaneously aborted.

Fixing that probably does require changing unifdef.c.

> > I can try to make the shell version more readable, and more powerful. 
> > It's already noticeably faster than the perl version.  I have no
> > objections to making unifdef do all of this, I just haven't got any
> > interest either.
>
> I have no interest in merging a shell version.

*shrug*  Ok.  I await your C version, and have a workable patch meeting my own 
needs in the meantime.

Thanks,

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Robert Hancock]

Rob Landley wrote:
> For the record, the reason I can't just pregenerate all these suckers on a 
> system that's got an arbitrary precision calculator (ala dc) and then just 
> ship the resulting header files (more or less the what the first version of 
> that first patch did) is that some architectures (arm omap and and arm at91) 
> allow you to enter arbitrary HZ values in kconfig.  (Their help text says that 
> in many cases values that aren't powers of two won't work, but nothing 
> enforces this.)  So if we didn't have the capability to dynamically generate 
> these, you could enter a .config value that would break the build.

Is there a good reason that these archs allow you enter arbitrary HZ 
values? The use case for using custom HZ values at all nowadays seems 
fairly low now that dynticks is around (if that arch supports it 
anyway), let alone being able to specify wierd obscure values for it. 
Especially if nothing can ensure that all values it allows will actually 
result in a functional kernel..

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[David Brownell]

On Saturday 03 January 2009, Robert Hancock wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > ... some architectures (arm omap and and arm at91) 
> > allow you to enter arbitrary HZ values in kconfig.  (Their help text says that 
> > in many cases values that aren't powers of two won't work, but nothing 
> > enforces this.)
> 
> Is there a good reason that these archs allow you enter arbitrary HZ 
> values?

Power-of-two can be desirable when using a 32 KiHz oscillator, because
other values accumulate rounding errors ... you can't make 100 Hz, or
250 Hz, or 300 Hz, or 1000 Hz, by a binary division of 32 KiHz.

Other values were supported to help work around stupid software making
bad assumptions about HZ.  IMO, enforcing power-of-two would be better;
that software breaks with dyntick anyway, and needs fixing.


> The use case for using custom HZ values at all nowadays seems  
> fairly low now that dynticks is around (if that arch supports it 
> anyway),

A better argument would be that GENERIC_TIME exists (and works
on OMAP and AT91), which avoids some flavors of rounding error.
ISTR those CONFIG_HZ options predate GENERIC_TIME support.

However, the issue remains that most kernel times are measured in
jiffies not ktime_t -- they're easier and more efficient, all
those 64-bit multiplies can hurt on ARM (32-bit, non-GHz) -- so
it's still good to be able to ensure that jiffies-centric logic
won't always be inserting easily avoidable errors.

- Dave

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 18:44:58 Robert Hancock wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > For the record, the reason I can't just pregenerate all these suckers on
> > a system that's got an arbitrary precision calculator (ala dc) and then
> > just ship the resulting header files (more or less the what the first
> > version of that first patch did) is that some architectures (arm omap and
> > and arm at91) allow you to enter arbitrary HZ values in kconfig.  (Their
> > help text says that in many cases values that aren't powers of two won't
> > work, but nothing enforces this.)  So if we didn't have the capability to
> > dynamically generate these, you could enter a .config value that would
> > break the build.
>
> Is there a good reason that these archs allow you enter arbitrary HZ
> values?

Not that I've noticed, no.  But you should ask Thomas Gleixner about that 
about that, I'm not a domain expert...

> The use case for using custom HZ values at all nowadays seems
> fairly low now that dynticks is around (if that arch supports it
> anyway), let alone being able to specify wierd obscure values for it.

And high performance event timers.  A kernel can have more than one time 
source these days...

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 10:04:08 Matthieu CASTET wrote:
> Rob Landley a écrit :
> > On Friday 02 January 2009 03:26:37 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>
> >> Heh,
> >
> > I believe all three scripts run under dash and busybox ash.  (The
> > timeconst.sh one needs 64 bit math which dash only provides on 64 bit
> > hosts, which is a regression from Red Hat 9 in 2003 by the way.
>
> With dash 0.5.4-12 (from debian sid), I seems I got the 64 bit math for
> 32 bit hosts :
> $ uname -m
> i686
> $ dash -c 'echo $((1<<32))'
> 4294967296
>
>
> Matthieu

Alas, my attempt to install a 32 bit version of xubuntu 8.10 under qemu hung 
at "Scanning files: 15%", and has been there for an hour now.  I'll have to 
take your word for it.  (All three scripts work fine under 64 bit dash.)

I encountered one bug in busybox, which I pinged that list about, but 
otherwise busybox ash works on 'em all too.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 10:04:08 Matthieu CASTET wrote:
> Rob Landley a écrit :
> > On Friday 02 January 2009 03:26:37 Arkadiusz Miskiewicz wrote:
> >> On Friday 02 of January 2009, Rob Landley wrote:
> >>
> >> Heh,
> >
> > I believe all three scripts run under dash and busybox ash.  (The
> > timeconst.sh one needs 64 bit math which dash only provides on 64 bit
> > hosts, which is a regression from Red Hat 9 in 2003 by the way.
>
> With dash 0.5.4-12 (from debian sid), I seems I got the 64 bit math for
> 32 bit hosts :
> $ uname -m
> i686
> $ dash -c 'echo $((1<<32))'
> 4294967296
>
>
> Matthieu

Alas, my attempt to install a 32 bit version of xubuntu 8.10 under qemu hung 
at "Scanning files: 15%", and has been there for an hour now.  I'll have to 
take your word for it.  (All three scripts work fine under 64 bit dash.)

I encountered one bug in busybox, which I pinged that list about, but 
otherwise busybox ash works on 'em all too.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Paul Mundt]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 02:07:28AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 ) 
> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build 
> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl and 
> python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a kernel.)  
> Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system built from 
> gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux kernel, and nothing 
> else.  (Embedded developers creating clean cross compile environments that 
> won't leak bits of the host system into the target, or bootstrapping native 
> development environments to run on target hardware or under emulators, tend to 
> care about this sort of thing.)
> 
> The perl checkin for 2.6.25 was the camel's nose under the tent flap, and 
> since then two more instances of perl have shown up in the core kernel build.  
> This patch series removes the three required to build a basic kernel for qemu 
> for the targets I've tested (arm, mips, powerpc, sparc, m68k, sh4, and of 
> course x86 and x86-64), replacing them with shell scripts.

Misguided rhetoric aside, what does this actually accomplish? If folks
add meaningful tools in to the kernel that require python, and it is
generally regarded as being fairly ubiquitous, I can't imagine there
being any substantiated objections against it.

Your main reasons against inclusion of perl seem to be that there is no
realistic expectation for target systems that will be self-hosting will
have perl included, or the inherent complexity in maintaining a coherent
cross compiling environment. Both of these things are issues with your
own environment, and in no way are these representative of the embedded
development community at large.

Now with that out of the way, this entire series fundamentally fails to
convert half of the perl scripts shipped with the kernel today, some that
are required for build depending on Kconfig options, and others that are
simply useful tools for self-hosted environments. Simply converting a
couple of scripts over you find objectionable is certainly fine if there
is a real benefit in doing so, but this doesn't actually accomplish your
goal of removing the perl dependency.

Ignoring the compile-time dependencies that you overlooked, what you
define as "development and debugging" scripts are still an integral part
of the system, unless you are trying to argue that embedded developers
have no interest in things like checkstack due to the trouble of trying
to get perl built.

Until you can post a series that converts all of scripts/*.pl in its
entirety, you have failed to address the fundamental reason why perl is
used in the first place. Trying to toss bizarre policy statements around
regarding things you personally find objectionable without any coherent
technical argument to the contrary is of no constructive use whatsoever.

The kernel is and always has been about using the right tool for the job,
not a matter of dictating what tools you must use in order to accomplish
a task you are interested in. Common sense does apply here though, so
this might be a more daunting task for some than others.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 3:50 AM, Paul Mundt wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 02:07:28AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
>> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git  
>> bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
>> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the  
>> build
>> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in  
>> perl and
>> python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a  
>> kernel.)
>> Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system  
>> built from
>> gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux kernel,  
>> and nothing
>> else.  (Embedded developers creating clean cross compile  
>> environments that
>> won't leak bits of the host system into the target, or  
>> bootstrapping native
>> development environments to run on target hardware or under  
>> emulators, tend to
>> care about this sort of thing.)
>>
>> The perl checkin for 2.6.25 was the camel's nose under the tent  
>> flap, and
>> since then two more instances of perl have shown up in the core  
>> kernel build.
>> This patch series removes the three required to build a basic  
>> kernel for qemu
>> for the targets I've tested (arm, mips, powerpc, sparc, m68k, sh4,  
>> and of
>> course x86 and x86-64), replacing them with shell scripts.
>
> Misguided rhetoric aside, what does this actually accomplish? If folks
> add meaningful tools in to the kernel that require python, and it is
> generally regarded as being fairly ubiquitous, I can't imagine there
> being any substantiated objections against it.

And if the said meaningful tools introduce complex dependencies, then  
there should be an open discussion as to why exactly we need those  
tools as opposed to a simpler implementation.

> Your main reasons against inclusion of perl seem to be that there is  
> no
> realistic expectation for target systems that will be self-hosting  
> will
> have perl included, or the inherent complexity in maintaining a  
> coherent
> cross compiling environment. Both of these things are issues with your
> own environment, and in no way are these representative of the  
> embedded
> development community at large.

I feel that if you attempted to look for discussions on "cross- 
compiling perl", you will meet with a variety of complaints on what a  
nightmare it is to do so in a sandboxed environment.

> Now with that out of the way, this entire series fundamentally fails  
> to
> convert half of the perl scripts shipped with the kernel today, some  
> that
> are required for build depending on Kconfig options, and others that  
> are
> simply useful tools for self-hosted environments. Simply converting a
> couple of scripts over you find objectionable is certainly fine if  
> there
> is a real benefit in doing so, but this doesn't actually accomplish  
> your
> goal of removing the perl dependency.

 From what I can tell, it allows one to fully build the Linux kernel  
without Perl. Without these series of patches, to actually *build* the  
kernel, one requires Perl. Unless there is an alternate way to do  
"make headers_install" that I am not seeing, that appears to now be  
done in Perl. All the other Perl scripts were merely nice to have, not  
necessary to build a Linux kernel.

> Ignoring the compile-time dependencies that you overlooked, what you
> define as "development and debugging" scripts are still an integral  
> part
> of the system, unless you are trying to argue that embedded developers
> have no interest in things like checkstack due to the trouble of  
> trying
> to get perl built.

Do I need that to compile a kernel? No.

> Until you can post a series that converts all of scripts/*.pl in its
> entirety, you have failed to address the fundamental reason why perl  
> is
> used in the first place. Trying to toss bizarre policy statements  
> around
> regarding things you personally find objectionable without any  
> coherent
> technical argument to the contrary is of no constructive use  
> whatsoever.

Perl was not required to build the Linux kernel. Now it is. It adds  
another dependency to the Linux kernel. Requiring bash is far less a  
dependency that Perl is.

> The kernel is and always has been about using the right tool for the  
> job,
> not a matter of dictating what tools you must use in order to  
> accomplish
> a task you are interested in. Common sense does apply here though, so
> this might be a more daunting task for some than others.

How is Perl a better tool for the job than what currently bash and  
other standard utilities already offer?

--
Mark Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Paul Mundt]

On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 04:32:42AM -0600, Mark Miller wrote:
> On Jan 2, 2009, at 3:50 AM, Paul Mundt wrote:
> >Misguided rhetoric aside, what does this actually accomplish? If folks
> >add meaningful tools in to the kernel that require python, and it is
> >generally regarded as being fairly ubiquitous, I can't imagine there
> >being any substantiated objections against it.
> 
> And if the said meaningful tools introduce complex dependencies, then  
> there should be an open discussion as to why exactly we need those  
> tools as opposed to a simpler implementation.
> 
Complex is relative, something that is fairly ubiquitious can hardly be
labelled as complex, regardless of whether historically people have had
issues with that dependency in certain spaces. In any event, simplifying
things is always good, but this open discussion thing is pure fancy,
since when was the kernel a democracy?

> >Your main reasons against inclusion of perl seem to be that there is
> >no realistic expectation for target systems that will be self-hosting
> >will have perl included, or the inherent complexity in maintaining a
> >coherent cross compiling environment. Both of these things are issues
> >with your own environment, and in no way are these representative of
> >the  embedded development community at large.
> 
> I feel that if you attempted to look for discussions on "cross- 
> compiling perl", you will meet with a variety of complaints on what a  
> nightmare it is to do so in a sandboxed environment.
> 
I've had to deal with cross compiling perl for over a decade, in all of
its various forms, in all manner of embedded applications, so please tell
someone who cares. There are various options around this headache today,
as there have been for ages (though the options these days are rather
less painful), and if you felt like attempting to look for discussions on
those rather than trying to push this silly matter perhaps you might come
up with something.

The key thing you hit on is that there are a variety of complaints, and
that is all they have ever been. If your system is so constrained, you
shouldn't be doing builds on it in the first place. You certainly won't
be able to build anything in your crippled environment outside of some
simple applications anyways, this isn't a valid technical reason for
keeping the kernel a policy stranglehold.

> >Now with that out of the way, this entire series fundamentally fails
> >to convert half of the perl scripts shipped with the kernel today,
> >some that are required for build depending on Kconfig options,
> 
[snip]

> From what I can tell, it allows one to fully build the Linux kernel  
> without Perl.

Wrong, re-read what I said and try again.

> >Ignoring the compile-time dependencies that you overlooked, what you
> >define as "development and debugging" scripts are still an integral  
> >part of the system, unless you are trying to argue that embedded
> >developers have no interest in things like checkstack due to the
> >trouble of trying to get perl built.
> 
> Do I need that to compile a kernel? No.
> 
Compile-time dependencies you do, yes.

> Perl was not required to build the Linux kernel. Now it is. It adds  
> another dependency to the Linux kernel. Requiring bash is far less a  
> dependency that Perl is.
> 
Perhaps so, but that is largely irrelevant. Moving off of the bash
dependency is a lot more trivial than moving off of the perl one. The
kernel bashisms are fairly marginal, and if someone were to do the leg
work for that, it might even be accepted. Getting rid of perl is an
uphill battle for no visible gain. People will continue to write and add
scripts both in bash and perl on a routine basis regardless.

> >The kernel is and always has been about using the right tool for the  
> >job, not a matter of dictating what tools you must use in order to
> >accomplish a task you are interested in. Common sense does apply here
> >though, so this might be a more daunting task for some than others.
> 
> How is Perl a better tool for the job than what currently bash and  
> other standard utilities already offer?
> 
How is bash a better tool for than job than what sed and posix shell
already offer? Yes, we can reduce our dependencies to the bare minimum,
but that is not constructive for the folks that are actually writing the
scripts in the first place.

Likewise, this is not even a real problem in the embedded developer
demographic, the only place this is a problem is in specially stripped
distributions or people that don't want to go through the pain of cross
compiling perl. None of which is of any concern.

If people are going to write useful things that are reasonably expected
to be standard on build machines, there is no reason to restrict what
tools they are permitted to use. If you have a personal vendetta against
something that is fairly standard, that is entirely your own personal
problem, you can choose to deal with it or patch out of tree for your own
crippled environment (assuming patch isn't too much of an obscure
dependency).

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark Miller]

On Jan 2, 2009, at 4:57 AM, Paul Mundt wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 04:32:42AM -0600, Mark Miller wrote:
>> On Jan 2, 2009, at 3:50 AM, Paul Mundt wrote:
>>> Misguided rhetoric aside, what does this actually accomplish? If  
>>> folks
>>> add meaningful tools in to the kernel that require python, and it is
>>> generally regarded as being fairly ubiquitous, I can't imagine there
>>> being any substantiated objections against it.
>>
>> And if the said meaningful tools introduce complex dependencies, then
>> there should be an open discussion as to why exactly we need those
>> tools as opposed to a simpler implementation.
>>
> Complex is relative, something that is fairly ubiquitious can hardly  
> be
> labelled as complex, regardless of whether historically people have  
> had
> issues with that dependency in certain spaces. In any event,  
> simplifying
> things is always good, but this open discussion thing is pure fancy,
> since when was the kernel a democracy?

I'm ignoring the bait.

>>> Your main reasons against inclusion of perl seem to be that there is
>>> no realistic expectation for target systems that will be self- 
>>> hosting
>>> will have perl included, or the inherent complexity in maintaining a
>>> coherent cross compiling environment. Both of these things are  
>>> issues
>>> with your own environment, and in no way are these representative of
>>> the  embedded development community at large.
>>
>> I feel that if you attempted to look for discussions on "cross-
>> compiling perl", you will meet with a variety of complaints on what a
>> nightmare it is to do so in a sandboxed environment.
>>
> I've had to deal with cross compiling perl for over a decade, in all  
> of
> its various forms, in all manner of embedded applications, so please  
> tell
> someone who cares.

Ignoring this as well.

> There are various options around this headache today,
> as there have been for ages (though the options these days are rather
> less painful), and if you felt like attempting to look for  
> discussions on
> those rather than trying to push this silly matter perhaps you might  
> come
> up with something.

And ignoring this too.

> The key thing you hit on is that there are a variety of complaints,  
> and
> that is all they have ever been. If your system is so constrained, you
> shouldn't be doing builds on it in the first place. You certainly  
> won't
> be able to build anything in your crippled environment outside of some
> simple applications anyways, this isn't a valid technical reason for
> keeping the kernel a policy stranglehold.

I merely don't like seeing another dependency added when there's no  
logical reason to do it, other than "why not". And there have been  
reasons given for the "not". Your reply, seems merely to be, "Because."


>>> Now with that out of the way, this entire series fundamentally fails
>>> to convert half of the perl scripts shipped with the kernel today,
>>> some that are required for build depending on Kconfig options,
>>
> [snip]
>
>> From what I can tell, it allows one to fully build the Linux kernel
>> without Perl.
>
> Wrong, re-read what I said and try again.

I have done so. And I restate, without these patches, Perl is required  
*for any install*. Your logic seems to be, if Perl is required for any  
part of doing something with the Linux kernel, then there is no reason  
it should not be allowed in all parts.

With this logic, soon the Linux kernel will require so many  
dependencies, that even a minimal system to rebuild itself under  
itself will comprise 200MB for stripped binaries. Right now, it's down  
to about 20ish.

With that, you also require more expertise in maintaing these variety  
of tools. You have given no logical reason on why we need to add more  
complexity to the kernel, when previous tools have managed to deal  
with this task for over ten years without requiring Perl.

>>> Ignoring the compile-time dependencies that you overlooked, what you
>>> define as "development and debugging" scripts are still an integral
>>> part of the system, unless you are trying to argue that embedded
>>> developers have no interest in things like checkstack due to the
>>> trouble of trying to get perl built.
>>
>> Do I need that to compile a kernel? No.
>>
> Compile-time dependencies you do, yes.
>
>> Perl was not required to build the Linux kernel. Now it is. It adds
>> another dependency to the Linux kernel. Requiring bash is far less a
>> dependency that Perl is.
>>
> Perhaps so, but that is largely irrelevant. Moving off of the bash
> dependency is a lot more trivial than moving off of the perl one. The
> kernel bashisms are fairly marginal, and if someone were to do the leg
> work for that, it might even be accepted. Getting rid of perl is an
> uphill battle for no visible gain. People will continue to write and  
> add
> scripts both in bash and perl on a routine basis regardless.
>
>>> The kernel is and always has been about using the right tool for the
>>> job, not a matter of dictating what tools you must use in order to
>>> accomplish a task you are interested in. Common sense does apply  
>>> here
>>> though, so this might be a more daunting task for some than others.
>>
>> How is Perl a better tool for the job than what currently bash and
>> other standard utilities already offer?
>>
> How is bash a better tool for than job than what sed and posix shell
> already offer? Yes, we can reduce our dependencies to the bare  
> minimum,
> but that is not constructive for the folks that are actually writing  
> the
> scripts in the first place.
>
> Likewise, this is not even a real problem in the embedded developer
> demographic, the only place this is a problem is in specially stripped
> distributions or people that don't want to go through the pain of  
> cross
> compiling perl. None of which is of any concern.

Yet again, you have a habit of writing off a large segment of the  
embedded development population that you seem to think doesn't exist.

> If people are going to write useful things that are reasonably  
> expected
> to be standard on build machines, there is no reason to restrict what
> tools they are permitted to use.

> If you have a personal vendetta against
> something that is fairly standard, that is entirely your own personal
> problem, you can choose to deal with it or patch out of tree for  
> your own
> crippled environment (assuming patch isn't too much of an obscure
> dependency).

Last I checked, patch was a part of busybox. Or is that yet another  
realm of embedded development that you are casting off into the depths  
of nowhere?

Honestly, it seems you have a personal vendetta against those not  
wanting to add another dependency.

--
Mark Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 03:50:23 Paul Mundt wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 02:07:28AM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> > The perl checkin for 2.6.25 was the camel's nose under the tent flap, and
> > since then two more instances of perl have shown up in the core kernel
> > build. This patch series removes the three required to build a basic
> > kernel for qemu for the targets I've tested (arm, mips, powerpc, sparc,
> > m68k, sh4, and of course x86 and x86-64), replacing them with shell
> > scripts.
>
> Misguided rhetoric aside, what does this actually accomplish? If folks
> add meaningful tools in to the kernel that require python, and it is
> generally regarded as being fairly ubiquitous, I can't imagine there
> being any substantiated objections against it.

I think bloat-o-meter is a marvelous tool, and I'm a big fan of python.  But I 
don't think you shouldn't have to run that to compile a kernel either, largely 
because not needing it for the first 17 years or so implied living without 
this requirement could be done, sustainably even.

There's a difference between a development workstation and a dedicated build 
system.  Requiring you to install X11 plus qt on the headless build server 
cranking out nightly snapshots in order to run the configure stage of the 
kernel build would be silly.  But this is not an argument for ripping out 
"make xconfig" from the kernel.

Spot the difference?

> Your main reasons against inclusion of perl seem to be that there is no
> realistic expectation for target systems that will be self-hosting will
> have perl included, or the inherent complexity in maintaining a coherent
> cross compiling environment.

I'm saying it's a major new environmental dependency that went in fairly 
recently and largely without comment, and it causes real world headaches for 
real people, of which I am only one.

If you don't think environmental dependencies are a problem, I welcome you to 
attempt to build open office.  (Even the gentoo guys gave up on that one and 
just started shipping a prebuilt binary.)

I think large amounts of complexity start with small amounts of complexity 
that grow.  Complexity is inevitable, but there should be a _reason_ for 
increases in it.

> Both of these things are issues with your
> own environment, and in no way are these representative of the embedded
> development community at large.
>
> Now with that out of the way, this entire series fundamentally fails to
> convert half of the perl scripts shipped with the kernel today, some that
> are required for build depending on Kconfig options, and others that are
> simply useful tools for self-hosted environments.

I didn't say the job was finished.  These are just the ones I've already 
personally hit, and thus A) needed to rewrite to build the kernel in my build 
environment, B) have a handy test case for.

> Simply converting a
> couple of scripts over you find objectionable is certainly fine if there
> is a real benefit in doing so, but this doesn't actually accomplish your
> goal of removing the perl dependency.

A) It's a start.

B) It works for me, and builds the .configs I've personally needed so far.

> Ignoring the compile-time dependencies that you overlooked, what you
> define as "development and debugging" scripts are still an integral part
> of the system, unless you are trying to argue that embedded developers
> have no interest in things like checkstack due to the trouble of trying
> to get perl built.

Coming up with new patches and modifying the source is a different use for 
source code than going "./configure; make; make install".  This is true for 
most open source software, I'd expect.

Or are you implying that eclipse or Emacs are such great IDEs that being able 
to build outside of a GUI isn't interesting?  The ability to build within an 
IDE should be allowed to preclude the ability to build without one?

> Until you can post a series that converts all of scripts/*.pl in its
> entirety, you have failed to address the fundamental reason why perl is
> used in the first place.

Never start anything unless you can finish it all in one go, eh?

Last I heard the kernel guys tend to frown on people who wander off in their 
own corner for a year and then dump a massive rewrite on them.  They seem to 
prefer the incremental "trail of breadcrumbs" approach.  Release early, 
release often, incorporate feedback, keep at it.

Or am I wrong?

> Trying to toss bizarre policy statements around
> regarding things you personally find objectionable without any coherent
> technical argument to the contrary is of no constructive use whatsoever.

Complexity is a cost, environmental dependencies are a form of complexity, if 
the benefit isn't worth the cost (or you can get the benefit without the cost) 
then you shouldn't pay the cost.

I was unaware this was a controversial attitude?

> The kernel is and always has been about using the right tool for the job,
> not a matter of dictating what tools you must use in order to accomplish
> a task you are interested in.

And yet despite "unifdef" being an existing tool, the kernel developers didn't 
require you to install it on your host, but instead built their own version 
from source.  (They didn't even require you to install a version of cpio on 
the host that understands -H newc, but instead built their own initramfs 
packer in C.)  More recently, they integrated dtc (the device tree compiler).

In each case, they made a balancing decision, and decided that integrating and 
maintaining a small C tool was better than having an environmental dependency.

> Common sense does apply here though, so
> this might be a more daunting task for some than others.

Apparently so.

I don't care if checkstack.pl is written in perl for the same reason I don't 
care if eclipse is written in java.  They're not build dependencies.

If I had to install gdb as a precondition of compiling the Linux kernel I'd 
think something was funny with that, which isn't saying I object to the 
existence of gdb or the ability to hook it up to kgdb or qemu or UML to poke 
at kernels.  It's two different categories.

It seems clear to _me_, anyway.  But it is coming up on 7am and I haven't 
gotten to bed yet, so take that for what it's worth...

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Wookey]

On 2009-01-02 18:50 +0900, Paul Mundt wrote:
> Your main reasons against inclusion of perl seem to be that there is no
> realistic expectation for target systems that will be self-hosting will
> have perl included, or the inherent complexity in maintaining a coherent
> cross compiling environment. Both of these things are issues with your
> own environment, and in no way are these representative of the embedded
> development community at large.

It may well be true that most embedded people cross-build kernels and
use native perl on a fat build box, but there are plenty of situations
where being able to build kernels without perl is useful. Given the
simplicitly of these patches I can't see any reason not to put them
in, and appreciate Rob's work on this.

And if cross-building perl is really easy, as some in this thread
claim, can someone fix the Debian packages to do it, because that
would be really useful (it appears to be of similar complexity to
cross-building gcc, requiring a 2-stage self-referential build). 

Wookey
-- 
Principal hats:  Balloonz - Toby Churchill - Aleph One - Debian
http://wookware.org/

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Sam Ravnborg]

Hi Wookey.

> Given the
> simplicitly of these patches I can't see any reason not to put them
> in

Please do NOT do the mistake and think this the same thing.

Rob's patch simplyfy the timecost stuff - and will be applied on
this merit alone assuming comments will be addressed.

But the serie rased anohter topic: shall we ban use of perl
for generating a kernel.
And this is what primary is discussed and the outcome of
that discussion will not prevent patches that stands on their
own to be applied.

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Sam Ravnborg]

Hi Wookey.

> Given the
> simplicitly of these patches I can't see any reason not to put them
> in

Please do NOT do the mistake and think this the same thing.

Rob's patch simplyfy the timecost stuff - and will be applied on
this merit alone assuming comments will be addressed.

But the serie rased anohter topic: shall we ban use of perl
for generating a kernel.
And this is what primary is discussed and the outcome of
that discussion will not prevent patches that stands on their
own to be applied.

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[H. Peter Anvin]

Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> Hi Wookey.
> 
>> Given the
>> simplicitly of these patches I can't see any reason not to put them
>> in
> 
> Please do NOT do the mistake and think this the same thing.
> 
> Rob's patch simplyfy the timecost stuff - and will be applied on
> this merit alone assuming comments will be addressed.
> 
> But the serie rased anohter topic: shall we ban use of perl
> for generating a kernel.
> And this is what primary is discussed and the outcome of
> that discussion will not prevent patches that stands on their
> own to be applied.
> 

My personal opinion on this is that this is ridiculous.  Given that you
need gcc, binutils, make etc. to build the kernel, and this is more than
inherent, you have to have a pretty bloody strangely constrained system
to disallow Perl, which is as close to a standard Unix utility you can
get without making it into SuS.

The only *real* motivation I have seen for this is a system that as far
I can tell is nothing other than a toy, specifically designed to show
off how little you need to build the kernel.  In other words, it's not a
practical application, it's a show-off art piece.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 13:27:45 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > Hi Wookey.
> >
> >> Given the
> >> simplicitly of these patches I can't see any reason not to put them
> >> in
> >
> > Please do NOT do the mistake and think this the same thing.
> >
> > Rob's patch simplyfy the timecost stuff - and will be applied on
> > this merit alone assuming comments will be addressed.
> >
> > But the serie rased anohter topic: shall we ban use of perl
> > for generating a kernel.
> > And this is what primary is discussed and the outcome of
> > that discussion will not prevent patches that stands on their
> > own to be applied.
>
> My personal opinion on this is that this is ridiculous.  Given that you
> need gcc, binutils, make etc. to build the kernel,

I believe Intel's icc builds the kernel, and tinycc previously built a subset 
of the kernel.  The pcc and llvm/clang projects are getting close to being 
able to build the kernel.  Ever since c99 came out, lots of gcc-isms with c99 
equivalents have been swapped over, most of the rest is testing.

> and this is more than
> inherent, you have to have a pretty bloody strangely constrained system
> to disallow Perl, which is as close to a standard Unix utility you can
> get without making it into SuS.

Please show me A) the standard perl implements, B) the second implementation 
of that standard ala IETF guidelines.

> The only *real* motivation I have seen for this is a system that as far
> I can tell is nothing other than a toy, specifically designed to show
> off how little you need to build the kernel.  In other words, it's not a
> practical application, it's a show-off art piece.

I'm glad you think my Firmware Linux project is a work of art, but if you'd 
like to hear directly from my users I can ask them to complain at you in 
person, if you like.  I'm not sure what that would prove, though.

When cross compiling, it's good to have as constrained an environment as 
possible, because otherwise bits of the host system leak into the target 
system.  If you don't tightly control your cross compiling environment, it 
won't work.  That's just about an axiom in embedded development.

I know every single dependency my system has.  I can list them, explicitly.  I 
did this because it's very _USEFUL_ in this context.

Add perl scripts that call cpan, and this is no longer true.

> 	-hpa

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 02 January 2009 12:01:34 Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> But the serie rased anohter topic: shall we ban use of perl
> for generating a kernel.

I dunno about "ban", but every time somebody adds perl to the "hot path" of 
the kernel build it breaks my build system, and I write a removal patch 
anyway.  I have to maintain them anyway, so I might as well try to push 'em 
upstream.  (I posted the first patch in this series twice before, once for 25 
and then an updated version to the linux-embedded list for .26.)

I didn't discover this topic independently.  Somebody pinged me about it on 
freenode back in February, and several other people sent me private email 
about it, and it's been previously raised on several other mailing lists (such 
as busybox and uclibc ones).

Unfortunately, most of the embedded developers I know aren't subscribed to 
linux-kernel.  (You either do kernel development, or you do everything else.  
It's not really feasible to keep up with the guts of the kernel and uClibc and 
busybox and gcc and qemu and the current offerings of three different hardware 
vendors and whatever userspace application the board's supposed to run and 
your build system and what INSANE things your EEdiot electrical engineer 
decided to miswire this time and fighting off marketing's desire to switch 
everything over to WinCE because they can get their entire advertising budget 
subsidized and there's a trade show next week we're not READY for...  Not only 
can none of 'em read a meaningful subset of linux-kernel anymore, but if you 
disappear into your own little niche for nine months, when you pop back up the 
kernel's all different and sometimes even the patch submission policy's 
migrated a bit.  Heck, I'm three months behind reading the LWN kernel page 
myself, and that's no substitute for kernel-traffic, RIP...)

Hopefully the cc: to linux-embedded is helping get more embedded guys involved 
in the discussion than just me. :)

> And this is what primary is discussed and the outcome of
> that discussion will not prevent patches that stands on their
> own to be applied.

The best way to get a patch applied is always for that patch to stand on its 
own merits.  Larger agendas are secondary.

Whether or not the kernel decides on a policy of keeping perl out of the 
kernel build's "hot path", I still need these patches for my own use, and plan 
to keep coming up with them and submitting them.  I haven't removed ones that 
haven't broken my build yet, but just because I'm not using md today doesn't 
mean I won't _start_.  (And if enough other people keep poking me about the 
kernel build I can tackle 'em to please them.  I actually _do_ know some 
embedded developers using raid for network attached storage and video servers 
and such...)

> 	Sam

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[klaasjan gm]

Rob and to whom it may concern,

> I didn't discover this topic independently.  Somebody pinged me about it on
> freenode back in February, and several other people sent me private email
> about it, and it's been previously raised on several other mailing lists (such
> as busybox and uclibc ones).
>
> Unfortunately, most of the embedded developers I know aren't subscribed to
> linux-kernel.

FWIW,

> Hopefully the cc: to linux-embedded is helping get more embedded guys involved
> in the discussion than just me. :)

Having some experience with cross-compiling the kernel, and some of the basic
toolsets:
I'm with you on this one (and testing the waters at linux-embedded
while I'm at it)

Regards,
Klaasjan

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Christian Gagneraud]

klaasjan gm wrote:
> Rob and to whom it may concern,
> 
>> I didn't discover this topic independently.  Somebody pinged me about it on
>> freenode back in February, and several other people sent me private email
>> about it, and it's been previously raised on several other mailing lists (such
>> as busybox and uclibc ones).
>>
>> Unfortunately, most of the embedded developers I know aren't subscribed to
>> linux-kernel.
> 
> FWIW,
> 
>> Hopefully the cc: to linux-embedded is helping get more embedded guys involved
>> in the discussion than just me. :)
> 
> Having some experience with cross-compiling the kernel, and some of the basic
> toolsets:
> I'm with you on this one (and testing the waters at linux-embedded
> while I'm at it)

+1

Chris
> 
> Regards,
> Klaasjan
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-embedded" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Paul Mundt,

In message <20090102095023.GA28078@linux-sh.org> you wrote:
>
> Your main reasons against inclusion of perl seem to be that there is no
> realistic expectation for target systems that will be self-hosting will
> have perl included, or the inherent complexity in maintaining a coherent
> cross compiling environment. Both of these things are issues with your
> own environment, and in no way are these representative of the embedded
> development community at large.

I'm  not  sure  how  representative  for  the  "embedded  development
community at large" your statement is.

Just to add a data point to the statistice, I do agree with Rob's
opinion about needing Per to build the Linux kernel.

All other arguments aside, natively compiling the Linux kernel  on  a
target  board, especially with root file system mounted over NFS, has
always been an excellent stress test (you may even call it regression
test) for Linux running on some target hardware.

Losing this ability just because  some  scripts  are  implemented  in
language  FOO when plain shell will do as well is something we should
try to avoid.

Of course, YMMV.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,     MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd@denx.de
Include the success of others in your dreams for your own success.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Leon Woestenberg]

Hello all,

On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> wrote:
> Before 2.6.25 (specifically git bdc807871d58285737d50dc6163d0feb72cb0dc2 )
> building a Linux kernel never required perl to be installed on the build
> system.  (Various development and debugging scripts were written in perl and
> python and such, but they weren't involved in actually building a kernel.)
> Building a kernel before 2.6.25 could be done with a minimal system built from
> gcc, binutils, bash, make, busybox, uClibc, and the Linux kernel, and nothing
> else.  (Embedded developers creating clean cross compile environments that
>

I agree with Rob that the amount of required dependencies should be
kept to a minimum.

If we only use 0.5% of a certain language (or: dependent package),
then rather implement
that 0.5% in the existing language.

Dependencies very quickly become dependency hell. If A requires B,
then A also inherits all
(future) requirements of B, etc. etc.

In my daily software development work with Linux and GNU software in
general, 10% of it is spent fighting/removing these extremely "thin"
or false depencies, so that it is usuable in embedded devices.


Regards,
-- 
Leon

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[H. Peter Anvin]

Leon Woestenberg wrote:
> 
> I agree with Rob that the amount of required dependencies should be
> kept to a minimum.
> 
> If we only use 0.5% of a certain language (or: dependent package),
> then rather implement that 0.5% in the existing language.
> 
> Dependencies very quickly become dependency hell. If A requires B,
> then A also inherits all (future) requirements of B, etc. etc.
> 
> In my daily software development work with Linux and GNU software in
> general, 10% of it is spent fighting/removing these extremely "thin"
> or false depencies, so that it is usuable in embedded devices.
> 

First of all, I largely consider this a joke.  All real-life embedded
kernel builds take place on hosted platforms; anything else seems to be
done "just because it can be done", as a kind of show-off art project.
Cute, but hardly worth impeding the rest of the kernel community for.

We're not talking about general platform dependencies here, but build
dependencies for the kernel.  A platform that can build the kernel is
not a small platform.

Second of all, these patches are not fullworthy replacements.  The
original patch using bc had less dependencies, but bc failed on some
platforms, mysteriously.  The new patches have *more* environmental
dependencies than that ever did.

Third, if someone actually cares to do it right, I have a smallish
bignum library at http://git.zytor.com/?p=lib/pbn.git;a=summary that
might be a starting point.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Leon Woestenberg]

Hello,

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 12:03 AM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
>> Dependencies very quickly become dependency hell. If A requires B,
>> then A also inherits all (future) requirements of B, etc. etc.
>>
>> In my daily software development work with Linux and GNU software in
>> general, 10% of it is spent fighting/removing these extremely "thin"
>> or false depencies, so that it is usuable in embedded devices.
>>
>
> First of all, I largely consider this a joke.  All real-life embedded
> kernel builds take place on hosted platforms; anything else seems to be
> done "just because it can be done", as a kind of show-off art project.
> Cute, but hardly worth impeding the rest of the kernel community for.
>
Let me explain why it is not a joke for me, although yes I agree it's
a funny way of how software engineering works.

My argument on thin dependencies indeed mostly holds for run-time
dependencies (to reduce size) but also for build dependency (to reduce
complexity)*.

In general the right version of the right tool is not available on the
build host.

If I cross-build 30 packages all of which need a build-host-native
perl during their build, consider the chance of these packages
building with the one version of perl that lives on the system. It's
near 0% for the average mix of packages.

Yes, the host is fat enough so that we can build (say three) different
versions of perl to accomodate the build.

The truth often is, of the 30 build dependencies 25 of them are thin
(build) dependencies.

So yes, the say extra 10% of build tool dependency needed to make 0.5%
of the build system work, can be solved on the fat build platform, but
I do not always consider it a well engineered solution.

For a (dangerous) metaphor: In mechanical engineering, if there are 30
joints using nuts and bolts, and a 31st is designed in, it is strongly
prefered to make it a nut and bolt as well, even if using a screw
would work equally well or even better. The overall costs (over
complexity, tool dependency, maintainability) would be lower.

Regards,
-- 
Leon

* Since Intel, since recently, pays another team of excellent people
maintaining a system dealing with the (cross) build tool dependency
hell, I rest my case. :-)

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 18:37:12 Leon Woestenberg wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 12:03 AM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
> >> Dependencies very quickly become dependency hell. If A requires B,
> >> then A also inherits all (future) requirements of B, etc. etc.
> >>
> >> In my daily software development work with Linux and GNU software in
> >> general, 10% of it is spent fighting/removing these extremely "thin"
> >> or false depencies, so that it is usuable in embedded devices.
> >
> > First of all, I largely consider this a joke.  All real-life embedded
> > kernel builds take place on hosted platforms; anything else seems to be
> > done "just because it can be done", as a kind of show-off art project.
> > Cute, but hardly worth impeding the rest of the kernel community for.
>
> Let me explain why it is not a joke for me, although yes I agree it's
> a funny way of how software engineering works.
>
> My argument on thin dependencies indeed mostly holds for run-time
> dependencies (to reduce size) but also for build dependency (to reduce
> complexity)*.

I usually just point to the gnucash 1.6 release as where this sort of thing 
leads if you ignore it long enough:
http://lwn.net/2001/0614/

These days, a more modern example is the way that after even the gentoo folks 
gave up on trying to build openoffice (and shipped prebuilt binaries of it in 
their "build everything from source code" OS), Open Office's own developers 
described that project "profoundly sick" and "stagnating" ( 
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/28/0124230 ).

Neither project _started_ with an inbred development community that presented 
a brick wall to new developers.  Complexity grew because they didn't fight 
against it, and because they didn't have good rules by which they could say 
"no" to any.

Environmental dependencies in your build environment are a cost, and as with 
all costs it's ok if you get enough in return for it.  The Linux kernel has 
historically been extremely lean in this regard, and discarding that strength 
should at the very least come with commensurate concrete benefits.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Markus Heidelberg]

Rob Landley, 04.01.2009:
> On Saturday 03 January 2009 18:37:12 Leon Woestenberg wrote:
> > My argument on thin dependencies indeed mostly holds for run-time
> > dependencies (to reduce size) but also for build dependency (to reduce
> > complexity)*.
> 
> I usually just point to the gnucash 1.6 release as where this sort of thing 
> leads if you ignore it long enough:
> http://lwn.net/2001/0614/
> 
> These days, a more modern example is the way that after even the gentoo folks 
> gave up on trying to build openoffice (and shipped prebuilt binaries of it in 
> their "build everything from source code" OS), Open Office's own developers 
> described that project "profoundly sick" and "stagnating" ( 
> http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/28/0124230 ).

Now that you mention this the second time, I have to ask where you have
this information from. Since I use Gentoo, I was always able to compile
OpenOffice (version 1, 2 and now 3) myself.

At the same time, it was always possible to use prebuilt packages as an
alternative - the same way as it is possible for a few other packages
(Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, maybe more). But AFAIK compiling from
source is still the preferred method.

Markus

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 21:38:13 Markus Heidelberg wrote:
> Rob Landley, 04.01.2009:
> Now that you mention this the second time, I have to ask where you have
> this information from. Since I use Gentoo, I was always able to compile
> OpenOffice (version 1, 2 and now 3) myself.

The gentoo panel last OLS.  (Either a BOF or a tutorial, I don't remember 
which.)  It's still _possible_ to build it from source, but they created a 
separate "openoffice-bin" package for the sole purpose of _not_ compiling it 
from source, and it's what they recommend installing.

> At the same time, it was always possible to use prebuilt packages as an
> alternative - the same way as it is possible for a few other packages
> (Firefox, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, maybe more). But AFAIK compiling from
> source is still the preferred method.

Apparently not for Open Office.

First hit googling "gentoo openoffice install":
http://grokdoc.net/index.php/Gentoo-OpenOffice.org

The next two hits are bug tracker entries, and the one after that:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/gentoo-linux-help/71086-installing-
openoffice-question.html

Contains this cut and paste from emerge output:

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies
!!! All ebuilds that could satisfy "openoffice" have been masked.
!!! One of the following masked packages is required to complete your request:
- app-office/openoffice-2.0.4_rc1-r1 (masked by: package.mask, package.mask, 
~am d64 keyword)
# 2005/10/24 Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org>
# Don't even try to compile openoffice-2.x, it won't work.

But not to go too far down this rathole, I'm just using openoffice as an 
example here.  If you want to talk about it more, take it off list please.

> Markus

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 17:03:11 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Leon Woestenberg wrote:
> > I agree with Rob that the amount of required dependencies should be
> > kept to a minimum.
> >
> > If we only use 0.5% of a certain language (or: dependent package),
> > then rather implement that 0.5% in the existing language.
> >
> > Dependencies very quickly become dependency hell. If A requires B,
> > then A also inherits all (future) requirements of B, etc. etc.
> >
> > In my daily software development work with Linux and GNU software in
> > general, 10% of it is spent fighting/removing these extremely "thin"
> > or false depencies, so that it is usuable in embedded devices.
>
> First of all, I largely consider this a joke.

Yes, I've noticed this.  The fact multiple other people do _not_ consider this 
a joke doesn't seem to have sunk in yet.

> All real-life embedded
> kernel builds take place on hosted platforms; anything else seems to be
> done "just because it can be done", as a kind of show-off art project.
> Cute, but hardly worth impeding the rest of the kernel community for.
>
> We're not talking about general platform dependencies here, but build
> dependencies for the kernel.  A platform that can build the kernel is
> not a small platform.

The kernel didn't need perl to build until 2.6.25.  For 17 years, this 
dependency was not required.  You added it, in a way that affected even 
"allnoconfig", for no obvious gain.

> Second of all, these patches are not fullworthy replacements.  The
> original patch using bc had less dependencies, but bc failed on some
> platforms, mysteriously.

So rather than debugging it, you rewrote it in perl.  Much less potential 
mysterious behavior there.

> The new patches have *more* environmental
> dependencies than that ever did.

Could you please be a little more specific?

> Third, if someone actually cares to do it right, I have a smallish
> bignum library at http://git.zytor.com/?p=lib/pbn.git;a=summary that
> might be a starting point.

This doesn't _need_ bignum support.  It maxes out around 72 bits and the 
_result_ can't use more than about $SHIFT bits because you're dividing by the 
amount you shifted, so just chop off the bottom 32 bits, do a normal 64 bit 
division on the top (it has to fit), and then do the same division on the 
appropriate shifted remainder, and combine the results.  This is easy because 
when the shift _is_ 32 bits or more, the bottom 32 bits all have to be zeroes 
so you don't even have to mask and add, just shift the remainder left 32 bits 
so you can continue the divide.

Pulling out perl isn't always a good alternative to thinking about the 
problem.

> 	-hpa

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[H. Peter Anvin]

Rob Landley wrote:
> 
>> The new patches have *more* environmental
>> dependencies than that ever did.
> 
> Could you please be a little more specific?
> 

In this case, you're assuming that every version of every shell this is
going to get involved with is going to do math correctly with the
requisite precision, which is nowhere guaranteed, I'm pretty sure.

>> Third, if someone actually cares to do it right, I have a smallish
>> bignum library at http://git.zytor.com/?p=lib/pbn.git;a=summary that
>> might be a starting point.
> 
> This doesn't _need_ bignum support.  It maxes out around 72 bits and the 
> _result_ can't use more than about $SHIFT bits because you're dividing by the 
> amount you shifted, so just chop off the bottom 32 bits, do a normal 64 bit 
> division on the top (it has to fit), and then do the same division on the 
> appropriate shifted remainder, and combine the results.  This is easy because 
> when the shift _is_ 32 bits or more, the bottom 32 bits all have to be zeroes 
> so you don't even have to mask and add, just shift the remainder left 32 bits 
> so you can continue the divide.
> 
> Pulling out perl isn't always a good alternative to thinking about the 
> problem.
> 

Neither is open-coding a bignum operation instead of relying on an
existing, validated implementation.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 20:14:44 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> >> The new patches have *more* environmental
> >> dependencies than that ever did.
> >
> > Could you please be a little more specific?
>
> In this case, you're assuming that every version of every shell this is
> going to get involved with is going to do math correctly with the
> requisite precision, which is nowhere guaranteed, I'm pretty sure.

Well, SUSv3 requires that the shell support signed long arithmetic:
http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_06_04

And the LP64 standard says that on 64 bit systems, long must be 64 bit:
http://www.unix.org/whitepapers/64bit.html

Now the potential weakness there is that on 32 bit systems, shells might only 
support 32 bit math instead of 64 bit math.  (You'll notice I have a test for 
that.)  However, bash has supported 64 bit math on 32 bit systems since at 
least 2003.  (I keep a Red Hat 9 test image around because it had 50% market 
share when it shipped, so the majority of "old" Linux systems still in use 
_are_ RH9 or similar.  It also has the oldest gcc version the kernel still 
claims to build under.)  Busybox ash can also support 64 bit math on 32 bit 
hosts, and I just confirmed that the dash in the 32 bit xubuntu 8.10 supports 
64 bit math as well.

(It would also be possible to do a similar overflow avoiding trick to do the 
lot entirely in 32 bit math, but given that the three main shells in use on 
Linux _do_ support 64 bit math on 32 bit hosts and are _required_ to support 
it on 64 bit hosts according to SUSv3, the extra complexity really doesn't 
seem worth it.)

> >> Third, if someone actually cares to do it right, I have a smallish
> >> bignum library at http://git.zytor.com/?p=lib/pbn.git;a=summary that
> >> might be a starting point.
> >
> > This doesn't _need_ bignum support.  It maxes out around 72 bits and the
> > _result_ can't use more than about $SHIFT bits because you're dividing by
> > the amount you shifted, so just chop off the bottom 32 bits, do a normal
> > 64 bit division on the top (it has to fit), and then do the same division
> > on the appropriate shifted remainder, and combine the results.  This is
> > easy because when the shift _is_ 32 bits or more, the bottom 32 bits all
> > have to be zeroes so you don't even have to mask and add, just shift the
> > remainder left 32 bits so you can continue the divide.
> >
> > Pulling out perl isn't always a good alternative to thinking about the
> > problem.
>
> Neither is open-coding a bignum operation instead of relying on an
> existing, validated implementation.

Implementing something by hand isn't _always_ a good alternative, sure.  That 
would be the "thinking about the problem" part.  In this instance, avoiding 
overflow is trivial.  (If 1<<-1 didn't wrap around, it wouldn't even need the 
if statement.)

I'm curious, would the "existing, validated implementation" in this instance 
be the perl implementation, or the library you wrote and pointed me to above 
as a potential replacement for it?

I suppose there's a certain amount of style in accusing me of reinventing the 
wheel while pointing me at your reinvention of the wheel.  (Are you aiming to 
replace Gnu's gmplib.org, the perhaps the BSD licensed one in openssh?  
Dropbear uses Libtommath.  A quick google for C open source big number 
libraries also found Libimath, MPI, NTL, BigDigits, decNumber, and MPI.  The 
last time I personally wrote my own arbitrary precision math package from 
scratch was in 1998, and that was in Java, so I'm a little rusty...)  But I 
don't personally consider avoiding the need for an arbitrary precision math 
library to be the same as reimplementing one.

> 	-hpa

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Pádraig Brady]

Rob Landley wrote:
> Implementing something by hand isn't _always_ a good alternative, sure.  That 
> would be the "thinking about the problem" part.  In this instance, avoiding 
> overflow is trivial.  (If 1<<-1 didn't wrap around, it wouldn't even need the 
> if statement.)

I don't think this affects your script but it's worth noting
that both bash and ksh use arithmetic rather than logical shift
for the >> operator.

Now arithmetic shift is not useful on 2's compliment machines,
and moreover it's compiler dependent as to whether arithmetic
or logical shift is done for >>. Therefore to increase usefulness
and decrease ambiguity, shells really should only shift unsigned
variables internally.

I know the opengroup spec says to use signed ints, but I think
that is intended to disambiguate input and output, rather than defining
internal operations. This is correct I think since the POSIX spec says
you can even use floating point internally if you like.

I asked the bash maintainer who said he would need clarification
from the austin group (CC'd) before changing anything.

cheers,
Pádraig.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Pádraig Brady]

Rob Landley wrote:
> Implementing something by hand isn't _always_ a good alternative, sure.  That 
> would be the "thinking about the problem" part.  In this instance, avoiding 
> overflow is trivial.  (If 1<<-1 didn't wrap around, it wouldn't even need the 
> if statement.)

I don't think this affects your script but it's worth noting
that both bash and ksh use arithmetic rather than logical shift
for the >> operator.

Now arithmetic shift is not useful on 2's compliment machines,
and moreover it's compiler dependent as to whether arithmetic
or logical shift is done for >>. Therefore to increase usefulness
and decrease ambiguity, shells really should only shift unsigned
variables internally.

I know the opengroup spec says to use signed ints, but I think
that is intended to disambiguate input and output, rather than defining
internal operations. This is correct I think since the POSIX spec says
you can even use floating point internally if you like.

I asked the bash maintainer who said he would need clarification
from the austin group (CC'd) before changing anything.

cheers,
Pádraig.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Jamie Lokier]

Rob Landley wrote:
> This doesn't _need_ bignum support.  It maxes out around 72 bits and
> the _result_ can't use more than about $SHIFT bits because you're
> dividing by the amount you shifted, so just chop off the bottom 32
> bits, do a normal 64 bit division on the top (it has to fit), and
> then do the same division on the appropriate shifted remainder, and
> combine the results.  This is easy because when the shift _is_ 32
> bits or more, the bottom 32 bits all have to be zeroes so you don't
> even have to mask and add, just shift the remainder left 32 bits so
> you can continue the divide.
> 
> Pulling out perl isn't always a good alternative to thinking about
> the problem.

Related query:

Does the Perl script being replaced use 64-bit arithmetic?  Because
many Perl installations only do 32-bit arithmetic.

If the Perl version works in 32-bit arithmetic, why does the shell
version not do the same thing?

-- Jamie

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[H. Peter Anvin]

Jamie Lokier wrote:
> 
> Related query:
> 
> Does the Perl script being replaced use 64-bit arithmetic?  Because
> many Perl installations only do 32-bit arithmetic.
> 
> If the Perl version works in 32-bit arithmetic, why does the shell
> version not do the same thing?
> 

The Perl version uses Math::BigInt, a Perl standard module (with a
canned-values fallback for ancient or minimal Perl installations) to do
arbitrary precision arithmetic.

The original version also produced constants that could be used with
64-bit values, but since gcc doesn't support 128-bit arithmetic on
32-bit platforms (gcc *does* support 128-bit arithmetic on 64-bit
platforms) we didn't end up using it and removed them, although the code
to generate them can still be activated.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[H. Peter Anvin]

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Jamie Lokier wrote:
>> Related query:
>>
>> Does the Perl script being replaced use 64-bit arithmetic?  Because
>> many Perl installations only do 32-bit arithmetic.
>>
>> If the Perl version works in 32-bit arithmetic, why does the shell
>> version not do the same thing?
>>
> 
> The Perl version uses Math::BigInt, a Perl standard module (with a
> canned-values fallback for ancient or minimal Perl installations) to do
> arbitrary precision arithmetic.
> 
> The original version also produced constants that could be used with
> 64-bit values, but since gcc doesn't support 128-bit arithmetic on
> 32-bit platforms (gcc *does* support 128-bit arithmetic on 64-bit
> platforms) we didn't end up using it and removed them, although the code
> to generate them can still be activated.
> 

I should point out that we really *should* use same kind of techniques
on 64 bits as well.  Even though the likelihood of overflow is much less
there (and the use of the LCD reduces it further) it is nonzero.
However, the places that were most seriously affected were all operating
on 32-bit input (int), and therefore the overflow-free 64-bit code never
got written.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Paul Mundt]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 08:06:47PM -0600, Rob Landley wrote:
> On Saturday 03 January 2009 17:03:11 H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > Leon Woestenberg wrote:
> > > I agree with Rob that the amount of required dependencies should be
> > > kept to a minimum.
> > >
> > > If we only use 0.5% of a certain language (or: dependent package),
> > > then rather implement that 0.5% in the existing language.
> > >
> > > Dependencies very quickly become dependency hell. If A requires B,
> > > then A also inherits all (future) requirements of B, etc. etc.
> > >
> > > In my daily software development work with Linux and GNU software in
> > > general, 10% of it is spent fighting/removing these extremely "thin"
> > > or false depencies, so that it is usuable in embedded devices.
> >
> > First of all, I largely consider this a joke.
> 
> Yes, I've noticed this.  The fact multiple other people do _not_ consider this 
> a joke doesn't seem to have sunk in yet.
> 
Let's look at the rationale presented so far in this thread:

	1 - Being able to build the kernel natively on a constrained
	target is useful, regardless of whether it is being used for
	regression/stress testing or for headers installation or whatever
	else.

	2 - Cross-compiling perl is hard.

	3 - Some oddly constrained target distributions manage to ship
	with an entire toolchain yet fail to provide any implementation
	of perl.

	4 - It wasn't required before.

If there is anything I missed, feel free to add it to the list. It was
difficult to extract even those 4 from the ranting.

#1 is a logical fallacy. If you have enough space and CPU power and
complete build environment to crunch away at the kernel for stress
testing natively, you can do the same with building perl and negating
point #2. This is especially true for NFS root filesystems where one is
not space constrained during the development phase.

#2 is another byproduct of your environment and generally a non-issue.
There are plenty of options around having to cross-compile perl, and for
those that still insist on doing so, people have been doing it long
enough to be aware of the pitfalls involved. It is not a pleasant
experience, but that is again entire your problem and entirely
constrained to your environment.

#3 seems to have come up a surprising number of times, and again seems to
originate from the fact that no one wants to be bothered with #2 whilst
putting together their oddly constrained rootfs. So far no one has
actually posted any coherent rationale as to why these distributions are
shipping with a full gcc/binutils/etc. environment yet are unable to
supply perl. Obviously size is not a factor if it ships with a full build
environment otherwise, so this suggests that the only logical objection
to fixing up the distributions stems from #4.

As far as #4 goes, I have a hard time seeing why this should be anyone's
problem. Progress is not made by restricting people to the way things
were, progress is made by adapting to new things as they come along. In
the case of the perl scripts provided, perl was picked by the developer
in question as the right tool for the job, and things generally went
along pretty smoothly. Given that one has a reasonable expectation of
perl being available on the vast majority of systems today, this is
hardly an unrealistic tool to leverage for use within the kernel scripts.

The perl dependency has never been an issue for me on any of the
platforms I routinely work on, ranging from tiny microcontrollers to
multi-node NUMA and SMP configurations and everything in between. In
places where the target is capable of building natively, I have no qualms
with building a reasonable development environment. And in places where
builds are unrealistic, I will do them on the host instead. This has
always been the way things were, and I find the implication that the
majority of the embedded development community sits fixedly on #3 to be
completely ridiculous. I will repeat again that no one has provided a
_single_ reason for why they are unable to provide perl within their
constrained environment. Until that happens, this entire thread is a
joke.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Leon Woestenberg]

Hello,

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 4:06 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
> Let's look at the rationale presented so far in this thread:
>
>        1 - Being able to build the kernel natively on a constrained
>        target is useful, regardless of whether it is being used for
>        regression/stress testing or for headers installation or whatever
>        else.
>
>        2 - Cross-compiling perl is hard.
>
>        3 - Some oddly constrained target distributions manage to ship
>        with an entire toolchain yet fail to provide any implementation
>        of perl.
>
>        4 - It wasn't required before.
>
> If there is anything I missed, feel free to add it to the list. It was
> difficult to extract even those 4 from the ranting.
>

2 is not hard.

5. Tool *version* dependency is hard to get right. When cross-building
30 software packages all requiring native perl, we probably need to
build a few versions of perl (native), one for each set of packages.



Regards,
-- 
Leon

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Leon Woestenberg]

Hello,

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 4:06 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
> Let's look at the rationale presented so far in this thread:
>
>        1 - Being able to build the kernel natively on a constrained
>        target is useful, regardless of whether it is being used for
>        regression/stress testing or for headers installation or whatever
>        else.
>
>        2 - Cross-compiling perl is hard.
>
>        3 - Some oddly constrained target distributions manage to ship
>        with an entire toolchain yet fail to provide any implementation
>        of perl.
>
>        4 - It wasn't required before.
>
> If there is anything I missed, feel free to add it to the list. It was
> difficult to extract even those 4 from the ranting.
>

2 is not hard.

5. Tool *version* dependency is hard to get right. When cross-building
30 software packages all requiring native perl, we probably need to
build a few versions of perl (native), one for each set of packages.



Regards,
-- 
Leon

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mike Frysinger]

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 05:23, Leon Woestenberg wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 4:06 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
>> Let's look at the rationale presented so far in this thread:
>>
>>        2 - Cross-compiling perl is hard.
>
> 2 is not hard.

i dont know where you're getting this mythical version of perl, but
anything beyond micro-perl is a pita.  and micro-perl is practically
worthless.  maybe for kernel/
-mike

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Bernd Petrovitsch]

On Son, 2009-01-04 at 11:23 +0100, Leon Woestenberg wrote:
[...]
> On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 4:06 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
[...]

I'm ignoring the "cross-compile perl" issue - haven't tried it for
years.

> 5. Tool *version* dependency is hard to get right. When cross-building
> 30 software packages all requiring native perl, we probably need to
> build a few versions of perl (native), one for each set of packages.

perl is IMHO special (and quite different to others - including
especially autotools): perl5 is used widely enough so that "one somewhat
recent version" should cover all of 30 software packages.
The hard part are the CPAN modules and their versions which are really a
PITA.
As long as you don't use modules from CPAN, "perl5" should be specific
enough.

	Bernd
-- 
Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 6:45 AM, Bernd Petrovitsch <bernd@firmix.at> wrote:
>
> On Son, 2009-01-04 at 11:23 +0100, Leon Woestenberg wrote:
> [...]
> > On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 4:06 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
> [...]
>
> I'm ignoring the "cross-compile perl" issue - haven't tried it for
> years.
>
> > 5. Tool *version* dependency is hard to get right. When cross-building
> > 30 software packages all requiring native perl, we probably need to
> > build a few versions of perl (native), one for each set of packages.
>
> perl is IMHO special (and quite different to others - including
> especially autotools): perl5 is used widely enough so that "one somewhat
> recent version" should cover all of 30 software packages.
> The hard part are the CPAN modules and their versions which are really a
> PITA.
> As long as you don't use modules from CPAN, "perl5" should be specific
> enough.
>
>        Bernd
> --
> Firmix Software GmbH                   http://www.firmix.at/
> mobil: +43 664 4416156                 fax: +43 1 7890849-55
>          Embedded Linux Development and Services

Actually, something that has amused me during this discussion, is that
right now, the latest stable Perl (5.8.8) does not compile correctly
on a uclibc host, which is typically what you want for embedded
systems, which is why you'd bother to cross compile. (Albeit I was
doing this natively under QEMU with a gcc/uclibc toolchain).

I'll have a patch submitted upstream shortly, but basically the
hints/linux.sh assumes *obviously* you're linking to glibc. I've made
that less libc dependent, looking for either glibc or uclibc.

So without patching Perl, by adding it to the kernel configuration,
it's broken being able to compile the kernel on most embedded
architectures.

And for H. Peter Anvin, before you refer to such uses as compiling the
kernel under a native environment as a "piece of art", please be aware
that the mainstream embedded development environment, buildroot, is
also attempting to utilize QEMU for a "sanity check" on the
environment.

There are several other packages which are broken for embedded
architectures, which I will hopefully attempt to fix by submitting
patches upstream. But this is why we should be cautious about
including new tools for compiling the kernel. Sam Ravnborg was correct
in that a C program to do the work would be the proper way. But by not
addressing a currently existing problem with an adequate replacement
with something that does not exist currently, seems faulty.
--
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[H. Peter Anvin]

Mark A. Miller wrote:
> 
> Actually, something that has amused me during this discussion, is that
> right now, the latest stable Perl (5.8.8) does not compile correctly
> on a uclibc host...
>

The latest stable Perl is 5.10.0, and the latest of the 5.8 series is 5.8.9.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:11 PM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com> wrote:
> Mark A. Miller wrote:
>>
>> Actually, something that has amused me during this discussion, is that
>> right now, the latest stable Perl (5.8.8) does not compile correctly
>> on a uclibc host...
>>
>
> The latest stable Perl is 5.10.0, and the latest of the 5.8 series is 5.8.9.
>
>        -hpa
>
> --
> H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
> I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.


My mistake. However,
http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/hints/linux.sh
still has the issue, specifically:

if test -L /lib/libc.so.6; then
    libc=`ls -l /lib/libc.so.6 | awk '{print $NF}'`
    libc=/lib/$libc
fi

So, my version was incorrect, yet the problem still exists. I've got a
patch, need to submit it, yet Perl *does not compile* on a uclibc
target *as is*.

And this is why we should avoid adding new tools to build the kernel,
because they introduce yet more break points, as such.

Thanks.

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

"My greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. My greatest
weakness, it's possible that I'm a little too awesome" - Barack Obama

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Paul Mundt]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 09:36:58PM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
> Actually, something that has amused me during this discussion, is that
> right now, the latest stable Perl (5.8.8) does not compile correctly
> on a uclibc host, which is typically what you want for embedded
> systems, which is why you'd bother to cross compile. (Albeit I was
> doing this natively under QEMU with a gcc/uclibc toolchain).
> 
> I'll have a patch submitted upstream shortly, but basically the
> hints/linux.sh assumes *obviously* you're linking to glibc. I've made
> that less libc dependent, looking for either glibc or uclibc.
> 
There are plenty that ship with glibc, too. What you "want" for embedded
systems depends entirely on the application for the device, not general
hand-wavy assertions. We (Renesas) ship BSPs on both precisely because of
this reason, and eglibc will probably factor in at some point later on
too.

> So without patching Perl, by adding it to the kernel configuration,
> it's broken being able to compile the kernel on most embedded
> architectures.
> 
This again has nothing to do with the kernel and everything to do with
your distribution. I use perl on uclibc natively just fine, it is
possible there are patches that have not been merged upstream, but this
is again an entirely separate issue.

You seem to be confusing the fact that people who build distributions and
people who use them are one and the same, whereas "most" embedded
developers are going to be using pre-built distributions provided with
their reference hardware, and locking it down during productization. The
fact you are doing a distribution aimed at embedded devices is nice, but
do not try to push off problems you run in to that have a reasonable
expectation of working everywhere else on to the kernel community as
something we ought to care about. 

If you need to use a different libc on your platform, yes, you will have
to update packages for this. This used to be true for gcc and other
packages as well, but those were all fixed over time. The fact perl still
stands out despite there being patches available is simply an indicator
that folks working in that area haven't been very proactive in getting
their changes merged upstream. Tough.

This is now entirely off-topic and has nothing to do with the kernel any
more. Please take this to the uclibc or perl lists instead.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 2:20 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 09:36:58PM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
>> Actually, something that has amused me during this discussion, is that
>> right now, the latest stable Perl (5.8.8) does not compile correctly
>> on a uclibc host, which is typically what you want for embedded
>> systems, which is why you'd bother to cross compile. (Albeit I was
>> doing this natively under QEMU with a gcc/uclibc toolchain).
>>
>> I'll have a patch submitted upstream shortly, but basically the
>> hints/linux.sh assumes *obviously* you're linking to glibc. I've made
>> that less libc dependent, looking for either glibc or uclibc.
>>
> There are plenty that ship with glibc, too. What you "want" for embedded
> systems depends entirely on the application for the device, not general
> hand-wavy assertions. We (Renesas) ship BSPs on both precisely because of
> this reason, and eglibc will probably factor in at some point later on
> too.
>
>> So without patching Perl, by adding it to the kernel configuration,
>> it's broken being able to compile the kernel on most embedded
>> architectures.
>>
> This again has nothing to do with the kernel and everything to do with
> your distribution. I use perl on uclibc natively just fine, it is
> possible there are patches that have not been merged upstream, but this
> is again an entirely separate issue.
>
> You seem to be confusing the fact that people who build distributions and
> people who use them are one and the same, whereas "most" embedded
> developers are going to be using pre-built distributions provided with
> their reference hardware, and locking it down during productization. The
> fact you are doing a distribution aimed at embedded devices is nice, but
> do not try to push off problems you run in to that have a reasonable
> expectation of working everywhere else on to the kernel community as
> something we ought to care about.
>
> If you need to use a different libc on your platform, yes, you will have
> to update packages for this. This used to be true for gcc and other
> packages as well, but those were all fixed over time. The fact perl still
> stands out despite there being patches available is simply an indicator
> that folks working in that area haven't been very proactive in getting
> their changes merged upstream. Tough.
>
> This is now entirely off-topic and has nothing to do with the kernel any
> more. Please take this to the uclibc or perl lists instead.
>

Paul:
I initially wrote a rather details response to your e-mail. But
instead, I shall quote a previous e-mail of yours:

> I will repeat again that no one has provided a
> _single_ reason for why they are unable to provide perl within their
> constrained environment. Until that happens, this entire thread is a
> joke.

And I did so. And you have disregarded it. That makes me question the
logic of your fervent vehemence against such "Perl is perhaps not a
good idea in the kernel build infrastructure" people like myself.

Thanks.

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 2:20 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 09:36:58PM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
>> Actually, something that has amused me during this discussion, is that
>> right now, the latest stable Perl (5.8.8) does not compile correctly
>> on a uclibc host, which is typically what you want for embedded
>> systems, which is why you'd bother to cross compile. (Albeit I was
>> doing this natively under QEMU with a gcc/uclibc toolchain).
>>
>> I'll have a patch submitted upstream shortly, but basically the
>> hints/linux.sh assumes *obviously* you're linking to glibc. I've made
>> that less libc dependent, looking for either glibc or uclibc.
>>
> There are plenty that ship with glibc, too. What you "want" for embedded
> systems depends entirely on the application for the device, not general
> hand-wavy assertions. We (Renesas) ship BSPs on both precisely because of
> this reason, and eglibc will probably factor in at some point later on
> too.
>
>> So without patching Perl, by adding it to the kernel configuration,
>> it's broken being able to compile the kernel on most embedded
>> architectures.
>>
> This again has nothing to do with the kernel and everything to do with
> your distribution. I use perl on uclibc natively just fine, it is
> possible there are patches that have not been merged upstream, but this
> is again an entirely separate issue.
>
> You seem to be confusing the fact that people who build distributions and
> people who use them are one and the same, whereas "most" embedded
> developers are going to be using pre-built distributions provided with
> their reference hardware, and locking it down during productization. The
> fact you are doing a distribution aimed at embedded devices is nice, but
> do not try to push off problems you run in to that have a reasonable
> expectation of working everywhere else on to the kernel community as
> something we ought to care about.
>
> If you need to use a different libc on your platform, yes, you will have
> to update packages for this. This used to be true for gcc and other
> packages as well, but those were all fixed over time. The fact perl still
> stands out despite there being patches available is simply an indicator
> that folks working in that area haven't been very proactive in getting
> their changes merged upstream. Tough.
>
> This is now entirely off-topic and has nothing to do with the kernel any
> more. Please take this to the uclibc or perl lists instead.
>

Paul:
I initially wrote a rather details response to your e-mail. But
instead, I shall quote a previous e-mail of yours:

> I will repeat again that no one has provided a
> _single_ reason for why they are unable to provide perl within their
> constrained environment. Until that happens, this entire thread is a
> joke.

And I did so. And you have disregarded it. That makes me question the
logic of your fervent vehemence against such "Perl is perhaps not a
good idea in the kernel build infrastructure" people like myself.

Thanks.

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Paul Mundt]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 03:18:53AM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 2:20 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
> 
> Paul:
> I initially wrote a rather details response to your e-mail. But
> instead, I shall quote a previous e-mail of yours:
> 
> > I will repeat again that no one has provided a
> > _single_ reason for why they are unable to provide perl within their
> > constrained environment. Until that happens, this entire thread is a
> > joke.
> 
> And I did so. And you have disregarded it. That makes me question the
> logic of your fervent vehemence against such "Perl is perhaps not a
> good idea in the kernel build infrastructure" people like myself.
> 
You have done no such thing. You have provided an example as to why you
personally find perl objectionable, and in your previous mail you even
noted that you have patches for perl to fix the build issues, so there is
no fundamental reason why you are _unable_ to provide perl in your
environment. It all comes down to the fact you don't want to be bothered
to put the effort in to getting perl setup in your environment, which
quite frankly is no one's problem but your own.

Personally I think perl (and python for that matter) is a terrible
language and I wouldn't use it for anything of consequence, but again,
that is my personal opinion and has nothing to do with regards to the
build system and whether it was the better tool for the job as perceived
by the people that elected to implemented infrastructure using it. I
choose not to use it for my own projects, but I have no qualms with those
that do.

The kernel does not need to provide justification for every change that
goes on as long as there is a reasonable attempt not to break things for
other people. The onus is (and always has been) on you to demonstrate why
perl is an unreasonable dependency to push on embedded developers, and
you have failed utterly at demonstrating this in any sort of coherent
fashion.

I will repeat, there has not been a single coherent argument against what
makes perl inherently incapable of being supported. Every single thing
you have presented as a rebuttal has been your personal preference, which
in this case is simply irrelevant.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 3:41 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:

> I will repeat, there has not been a single coherent argument against what
> makes perl inherently incapable of being supported.

You're right, this thread is worthless with that particular mindset,
Paul. Not, perhaps that the tool in question is brittle, and prone to
potentially break on more architectures than the current make and C
code infrastructure, no, your stance is, unless Perl *cannot* run on
that particular architecture and environment, it has a valid place in
the kernel because it was chosen by certain developers.

And you're right, I did patch around Perl in order to get it to build
under a MIPSEL uclibc environment.

But yes, this particular thread with you *is* worthless, because it's
an argument who's stance is not worth fighting against because of it's
flawed premise.

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 3:41 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:

> I will repeat, there has not been a single coherent argument against what
> makes perl inherently incapable of being supported.

You're right, this thread is worthless with that particular mindset,
Paul. Not, perhaps that the tool in question is brittle, and prone to
potentially break on more architectures than the current make and C
code infrastructure, no, your stance is, unless Perl *cannot* run on
that particular architecture and environment, it has a valid place in
the kernel because it was chosen by certain developers.

And you're right, I did patch around Perl in order to get it to build
under a MIPSEL uclibc environment.

But yes, this particular thread with you *is* worthless, because it's
an argument who's stance is not worth fighting against because of it's
flawed premise.

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Paul Mundt]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 04:03:32AM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 3:41 AM, Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org> wrote:
> > I will repeat, there has not been a single coherent argument against what
> > makes perl inherently incapable of being supported.
> 
> You're right, this thread is worthless with that particular mindset,
> Paul. Not, perhaps that the tool in question is brittle, and prone to
> potentially break on more architectures than the current make and C
> code infrastructure, no, your stance is, unless Perl *cannot* run on
> that particular architecture and environment, it has a valid place in
> the kernel because it was chosen by certain developers.
> 
Nonsense. I singled out that point because that was the one you were
replying to in the first place. I itemized the objections in this thread
earlier on and attempted to indicate why they were not applicable in this
context, and asked people to add to it if anything had been overlooked.
If you want to play semantics, do it somewhere else.

If the tool is brittle and constantly breaking, we will see bug reports,
and re-evaluate the support position. This hasn't happened to date in the
context of the kernel build system, so there is no point in even bringing
this up.

Anyways, given that you haven't contributed anything to the kernel and
are therefore perhaps unfamiliar with how things work, I attempted to
show you why the kernel made the decision it did and what it would take
to change that. You have from the beginning only wanted to focus on idle
semantics and refused to re-evaluate your own position on what precisely
it is you find to be problematic in the first place.

So, with that, I am done with this thread, and it seems the key takeaways
from this entire thing has only been a few new lines in my killfile.
It's regrettable you didn't get anything else out of this thread, though
I think both the kernel and embedded linux will survive.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Monday 12 January 2009 03:41:22 Paul Mundt wrote:
> Personally I think perl (and python for that matter) is a terrible
> language and I wouldn't use it for anything of consequence, but again,
> that is my personal opinion and has nothing to do with regards to the
> build system and whether it was the better tool for the job as perceived
> by the people that elected to implemented infrastructure using it. I
> choose not to use it for my own projects, but I have no qualms with those
> that do.

Apparently you have qualms with people who chose to reimplement the perl bits 
in one of the languages kernel developers already needed to know this time 
last year (shell, C, make).

> The kernel does not need to provide justification for every change that
> goes on as long as there is a reasonable attempt not to break things for
> other people.

I submitted a change, you insisted that I justify it to your satisfaction.  
That pretty much summarizes your participation in this thread.

> The onus is (and always has been) on you to demonstrate why
> perl is an unreasonable dependency to push on embedded developers, and
> you have failed utterly at demonstrating this in any sort of coherent
> fashion.

Large additional dependencies without benefit are unreasonable.  My primary 
objection to perl is that it happens to be an additional large dependency 
without a correspondingly large benefit.

Your position is not internally consistent.  There was no need to scrutinize 
it when it went in, but there is a need to scrutinize patches reimplementing 
those bits without it.  You don't need the word "perl" in that sentence for 
your position to be a touch unbalanced.

> I will repeat, there has not been a single coherent argument against what
> makes perl inherently incapable of being supported.

I didn't say it was incapable of being supported.  We're _capable_ of 
reimplementing the entire kernel in perl except for a microkernel interpreter 
running on the bare metal.  Or cobol.  Sun spent some time trying to do one in 
Java a few years back.

"It can be done" and "It's a good idea" are two completely different criteria.

> Every single thing
> you have presented as a rebuttal has been your personal preference, which
> in this case is simply irrelevant.

Stop getting so hung up on the word "perl".  Did you ever notice the _shipped 
files in the kernel so you don't have to have lex or yacc installed?  That's 
been kernel policy for how many years now?  The arguments about "dash vs bash" 
when reviewing the shell versions of these scripts are a similar impulse: 
trying to reduce unnecessary dependencies.

My first version of the timeconst patch didn't remove the perl script that 
generated the file, it simply shipped the pregenerated .h file so it was 
possible to _build_ without perl.  That was not sufficient for technical 
reasons (due to the two architectures that allow you to enter arbitrary 
values), so I redid the patch.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Alan Cox]

> I didn't say it was incapable of being supported.  We're _capable_ of 
> reimplementing the entire kernel in perl 

Which perl. What minor release, what day of the week syntax.

Ask anyone in the distribution business about the joy of perl and you can
listen to the screams for hours.

Perl5 has no formal grammar and you cannot tell what perl of the week
does and perl of last week doesn't do.

That makes it a bad candidate for our toolchain dependencies.


Alan
--
   "I don't want world domination if it means I have to deal with more
	people like this" - Mike Wangsmo

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Mark" == Mark A Miller <mark@mirell.org> writes:

 Mark> And for H. Peter Anvin, before you refer to such uses as compiling the
 Mark> kernel under a native environment as a "piece of art", please be aware
 Mark> that the mainstream embedded development environment, buildroot, is
 Mark> also attempting to utilize QEMU for a "sanity check" on the
 Mark> environment.

That's for verifying that the rootfs'es actually work, not for
building stuff.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Monday 12 January 2009 02:27:32 Peter Korsgaard wrote:
> >>>>> "Mark" == Mark A Miller <mark@mirell.org> writes:
>
>  Mark> And for H. Peter Anvin, before you refer to such uses as compiling
> the Mark> kernel under a native environment as a "piece of art", please be
> aware Mark> that the mainstream embedded development environment,
> buildroot, is Mark> also attempting to utilize QEMU for a "sanity check" on
> the Mark> environment.
>
> That's for verifying that the rootfs'es actually work, not for
> building stuff.

Not in my case.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Sam Ravnborg]

> There are several other packages which are broken for embedded
> architectures, which I will hopefully attempt to fix by submitting patches
> upstream. But this is why we should be cautious about including new tools
> for compiling the kernel. Sam Ravnborg was correct in that a C program to do
> the work would be the proper way. But by not addressing a currently existing
> problem with an adequate replacement with something that does not exist
> currently, seems faulty.

Why are "make headers_install" such a crucial thing for your
embedded environmnet?

I would assume that if this of such improtance then there is also
someone to step up and contribute a C version of it.

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> wrote:
>> There are several other packages which are broken for embedded
>> architectures, which I will hopefully attempt to fix by submitting patches
>> upstream. But this is why we should be cautious about including new tools
>> for compiling the kernel. Sam Ravnborg was correct in that a C program to do
>> the work would be the proper way. But by not addressing a currently existing
>> problem with an adequate replacement with something that does not exist
>> currently, seems faulty.
>
> Why are "make headers_install" such a crucial thing for your
> embedded environmnet?

Sanity check. If the environment cannot replicate itself, then
something has been faulty in the cross-compiling stage, that was used
to propagate a native environment for the target architecture.

> I would assume that if this of such improtance then there is also
> someone to step up and contribute a C version of it.

You've already dismissed a shell version to correct the issue, in
hopes of a "possible" C version. It would be nice, I'm not capable of
doing it personally, but a solution already exists to "unbreak" the
kernel build. If you're unwilling to merge the current patches, then
feel free to claim that this doesn't break anything on current
architectures, but it's incorrect, due to Perl not even compiling as
is currently on a native uclibc environment.

I look forward to what other tools will be introduced to break yet
more architectures until the kernel cannot be compiled unless on an
i686+glibc architecture.

>        Sam

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:50:31PM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> wrote:
> >> There are several other packages which are broken for embedded
> >> architectures, which I will hopefully attempt to fix by submitting patches
> >> upstream. But this is why we should be cautious about including new tools
> >> for compiling the kernel. Sam Ravnborg was correct in that a C program to do
> >> the work would be the proper way. But by not addressing a currently existing
> >> problem with an adequate replacement with something that does not exist
> >> currently, seems faulty.
> >
> > Why are "make headers_install" such a crucial thing for your
> > embedded environmnet?
> 
> Sanity check. If the environment cannot replicate itself, then
> something has been faulty in the cross-compiling stage, that was used
> to propagate a native environment for the target architecture.

So you actually build your target toolchain on your target?

	Sam

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 4:18 AM, Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:50:31PM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> wrote:
>> >> There are several other packages which are broken for embedded
>> >> architectures, which I will hopefully attempt to fix by submitting patches
>> >> upstream. But this is why we should be cautious about including new tools
>> >> for compiling the kernel. Sam Ravnborg was correct in that a C program to do
>> >> the work would be the proper way. But by not addressing a currently existing
>> >> problem with an adequate replacement with something that does not exist
>> >> currently, seems faulty.
>> >
>> > Why are "make headers_install" such a crucial thing for your
>> > embedded environmnet?
>>
>> Sanity check. If the environment cannot replicate itself, then
>> something has been faulty in the cross-compiling stage, that was used
>> to propagate a native environment for the target architecture.
>
> So you actually build your target toolchain on your target?
>
>        Sam

Correct, albeit under emulation, such as QEMU. Obviously the target
architecture, such as an embedded MIPSEL device with only 8MB of flash
and 64MB of RAM, is not going to (particularly well) re-compile its
entire environment, QEMU allows it nicely with distcc at a reasonable
speed. (Albeit there is no distconfigure, but that's entirely an
unrelated tanget of muck and despair and rants against configure, but
we're not going there...)

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Monday 12 January 2009 11:22:47 you wrote:
...
> entire environment, QEMU allows it nicely with distcc at a reasonable
> speed. (Albeit there is no distconfigure, but that's entirely an
> unrelated tanget of muck and despair and rants against configure, but
> we're not going there...)

I'd be interested in hearing your issues with configure for cross compiling 
right ? 
I added cross compiling support to cmake, so I'm interested to see whether we 
did it better :-)

Alex

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Mark A. Miller]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 4:44 AM, Alexander Neundorf
<neundorf@eit.uni-kl.de> wrote:
> On Monday 12 January 2009 11:22:47 you wrote:
> ...
>> entire environment, QEMU allows it nicely with distcc at a reasonable
>> speed. (Albeit there is no distconfigure, but that's entirely an
>> unrelated tanget of muck and despair and rants against configure, but
>> we're not going there...)
>
> I'd be interested in hearing your issues with configure for cross compiling
> right ?
> I added cross compiling support to cmake, so I'm interested to see whether we
> did it better :-)
>
> Alex

Actually, I've mostly avoided that with doing most of the compiles in
QEMU. I just pine for a distconfigure, and rant about configure in
general, since it takes quite a while to do all the checks under an
emulated host, and it checks for *stupid things* in a lot of packages,
like, "Do we have the MacOSX 10.5 SDK installed...", when it already
determined that it was running on Linux, and...

Yah. Muck and despair...muck and despair.

-- 
Mark A. Miller
mark@mirell.org

"My greatest strength, I guess it would be my humility. My greatest
weakness, it's possible that I'm a little too awesome" - Barack Obama

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Monday 12 January 2009 11:55:32 Mark A. Miller wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 4:44 AM, Alexander Neundorf
>
> <neundorf@eit.uni-kl.de> wrote:
> > On Monday 12 January 2009 11:22:47 you wrote:
> > ...
> >
> >> entire environment, QEMU allows it nicely with distcc at a reasonable
> >> speed. (Albeit there is no distconfigure, but that's entirely an
> >> unrelated tanget of muck and despair and rants against configure, but
> >> we're not going there...)
> >
> > I'd be interested in hearing your issues with configure for cross
> > compiling right ?
> > I added cross compiling support to cmake, so I'm interested to see
> > whether we did it better :-)
> >
> > Alex
>
> Actually, I've mostly avoided that with doing most of the compiles in
> QEMU. I just pine for a distconfigure, 

What should it do ?
Basically configure tests can:
-check for the existance and/or contents of files
-try to build something
-try to execute something already existing
-try to execute something just built

The last two types are the problematic ones. What do you suggest for them ?

> and rant about configure in
> general, since it takes quite a while to do all the checks under an
> emulated host, and it checks for *stupid things* in a lot of packages,
> like, "Do we have the MacOSX 10.5 SDK installed...", when it already
> determined that it was running on Linux, and...

You can do that too with cmake, but don't have to :-)

Alex

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Paul Mundt]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2009 at 11:18:03AM +0100, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:50:31PM -0600, Mark A. Miller wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> wrote:
> > >> There are several other packages which are broken for embedded
> > >> architectures, which I will hopefully attempt to fix by submitting patches
> > >> upstream. But this is why we should be cautious about including new tools
> > >> for compiling the kernel. Sam Ravnborg was correct in that a C program to do
> > >> the work would be the proper way. But by not addressing a currently existing
> > >> problem with an adequate replacement with something that does not exist
> > >> currently, seems faulty.
> > >
> > > Why are "make headers_install" such a crucial thing for your
> > > embedded environmnet?
> > 
> > Sanity check. If the environment cannot replicate itself, then
> > something has been faulty in the cross-compiling stage, that was used
> > to propagate a native environment for the target architecture.
> 
> So you actually build your target toolchain on your target?
> 
This happens in a lot of places, like embedded gentoo ports, where almost
all of the work is sent across distcc to a cross-compilation machine. In
systems that use package management, it is done on the host through
emulation, or painfully cross-compiled.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Jamie Lokier]

Paul Mundt wrote:
> This happens in a lot of places, like embedded gentoo ports, where almost
> all of the work is sent across distcc to a cross-compilation machine. In
> systems that use package management, it is done on the host through
> emulation, or painfully cross-compiled.

Ah yes, I remember using embedded Gentoo.

95% of the time in ./configure scripts, 5% in compilations.

And this is on x86!  I dread to think how slow it gets on something
slow.

-- Jamie

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Jamie Lokier]

Paul Mundt wrote:
> This happens in a lot of places, like embedded gentoo ports, where almost
> all of the work is sent across distcc to a cross-compilation machine. In
> systems that use package management, it is done on the host through
> emulation, or painfully cross-compiled.

Ah yes, I remember using embedded Gentoo.

95% of the time in ./configure scripts, 5% in compilations.

And this is on x86!  I dread to think how slow it gets on something
slow.

-- Jamie

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Tuesday 13 January 2009 20:51:16 Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Paul Mundt wrote:
> > This happens in a lot of places, like embedded gentoo ports, where almost
> > all of the work is sent across distcc to a cross-compilation machine. In
> > systems that use package management, it is done on the host through
> > emulation, or painfully cross-compiled.
>
> Ah yes, I remember using embedded Gentoo.
>
> 95% of the time in ./configure scripts, 5% in compilations.

With SMP becoming commonplace, expect this to become the norm everywhere.  
Once you get to around quad processor, any C program with a ./configure step 
is probably going to take longer to configure than to compile.  (Of course C++ 
manages to remain slow enough that autoconf isn't so obvious a bottleneck.)

> And this is on x86!  I dread to think how slow it gets on something
> slow.

My friend Mark's been experimenting with the amazon "cloud" thing, feeding in 
an image with a qemu instance and distcc+cross-compiler, and running builds 
under that.  Renting an 8-way ~2.5 ghz server with 7 gigabytes of ram and 1.6 
terabytes of disk is 80 cents/hour through them plus another few cents/day for 
bandwidth and persistent storage and such.  That's likely to get cheaper as 
time goes on.

We're still planning to buy a build server of our own to have something in-
house, but for running nightly builds it's almost to the point where 
depreciation on the hardware is more than buying time from a server farm.  
Just _one_ of those 8-way servers is enough hardware to build an entire distro 
in an hour or so.

What this really allows us to do is experiment with "how parallel can we get 
our build"?  Because renting ten 8-way servers in a cluster is $8/hour, and 
distcc already scales trivially over that.  Down the road what Firmware Linux 
is working towards is multiple qemu instances running in parallel with a 
central instance distributing builds to each one, so each can do its own 
./configure in parallel, distribute compilation to the distccd instances as it 
has stuff to compile, and then package up the resulting binary into one of 
those portage tarballs and send it back to the central node to install on a 
network mount that the lot of 'em can mount as build context, so the packages 
can get their dependencies right.  (You don't want your build taking place in 
a network mount, but your OS being on one you never write to isn't so bad as 
long as you have local storage to build in.)

We'll probably leverage the heck out of Portage for this, and might wind up 
modifying it heavily.  Dunno yet.  (We can even force dependencies on portage 
so it doesn't need to calculate 'em, the central node can do that and then say 
"you have these packages, _build_"...)

But yeah, hobbyists with a laptop, network access, and a monthly budget of $20 
can do cluster builds these days.

Rob

P.S.  I still hope autoconf dies off and the world wakes up and moves away 
from that.  And from makefiles for that matter.  But in the meantime, I can 
work around it with enough effort.

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Friday 16 January 2009 07:11:09 Rob Landley wrote:
...
> P.S.  I still hope autoconf dies off and the world wakes up and moves away
> from that.  

Parts of it did already :-)
In KDE we switched to CMake, getting rid of automake, autoconf, libtool and 
m4, and many of those developers now bring CMake into other projects they are 
working on.
Still, the configure (or cmake) step remains, and it remains non-parallel, it 
is much harder to parallelize than the build itself.

Alex

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 658 bytes --]

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:11:09 CST, Rob Landley said:
> P.S.  I still hope autoconf dies off and the world wakes up and moves away 
> from that.  And from makefiles for that matter.  But in the meantime, I can 
> work around it with enough effort.

What do you propose autoconf and makefiles get replaced by?

% wc pidgin/configure*
  34287  118303 1004074 pidgin/configure
   2499    7684   81532 pidgin/configure.ac

Which you rather code, 2.5K lines of autoconf or 35K lines of configure
script? As long as there's enough diversity to require configure scripts,
there's going to be a demand for an autoconf-ish feature to ease writing them.


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Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 16 January 2009 08:54:42 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:11:09 CST, Rob Landley said:
> > P.S.  I still hope autoconf dies off and the world wakes up and moves
> > away from that.  And from makefiles for that matter.  But in the
> > meantime, I can work around it with enough effort.
>
> What do you propose autoconf and makefiles get replaced by?

At a first guess, meaningful standards and an acknowledgement that Linux is a 
platform in its own right?  Between the two of them, that's 90% of your 
problem right there.

Not a new issue, here's a link from 2002:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-950180.html

And here's a multi-vendor effort at a standards group (the 86open project to 
definite a Unix binary standard for x86 processors) dissolving itself way back 
in 1999 with a declaration that the Linux binary format already was an open 
standard and other unixes should just use things like lxrun to support that: 
http://www.telly.org/86open/

Also, it would be nice if configure steps could stop entangling 1) users 
providing preferences (command line options like --prefix or most of the --
enable and --disable flags) for which things like kconfig might make more 
sense, 2) probe for installed packages like zlib and enabling optional support 
if found, 3) questions like "does my build environment provide strlcpy()".  
Turning that into a big hairball does not help keep things simple.

> % wc pidgin/configure*
>   34287  118303 1004074 pidgin/configure
>    2499    7684   81532 pidgin/configure.ac
>
> Which you rather code, 2.5K lines of autoconf or 35K lines of configure
> script?

I consider it a false dichotomy.  I prefer "neither", and have seen it done 
successfully many times.

I've never built pidgin from source, but I've got the output of the binutils 
build in a log file.  How many of these tests are actually necessary on any 
Linux system:

checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for library containing strerror... none required
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking whether gcc and cc understand -c and -o together... yes
checking for an ANSI C-conforming const... yes
checking for inline... inline

It just goes on and on and on like this.  Tests like "checking whether byte 
ordering is bigendian... no" means "Either I didn't know endian.h existed, or 
I don't trust it to be there".  How about the long stretches checking for the 
existence of header files specified by posix?  Or this gem:

checking for gawk... no
checking for mawk... no
checking for nawk... no
checking for awk... awk

(If you can use awk, when is it _not_ there?  Probable answer: there was some 
broken version on irix back in 1992 with zero remaining seats today, and they 
never went back to clean anything out of the makefile because "simplifying the 
build" and "autoconf" do not go together, and because you can't sanely 
regression test against build environments nobody has anymore.)

This argument is a can of worms, and the linux-kernel list probably isn't the 
best place for it.  However, "install mingw on windows instead of trying to 
get your thing to build under Visual Studio" is a decent support strategy.  
Tinycc and Intel's icc both implemented gcc extensions to build the kernel, 
and the kernel's been removing such extensions where c99 versions are 
available since then.  Things like uClibc implement standards and copy glibc 
extensions that are actually used.

In the era of open source, it's now a viable strategy to specify, document, 
and require a standardized build environment.  The way to make that build 
environment portable is to keep it simple and standardized, not to create a 
tower of #ifdefs testing the output of a huge environment probing shell 
script.

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Jamie Lokier]

Rob Landley wrote:
> On Friday 16 January 2009 08:54:42 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> > On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:11:09 CST, Rob Landley said:
> > > P.S.  I still hope autoconf dies off and the world wakes up and moves
> > > away from that.  And from makefiles for that matter.  But in the
> > > meantime, I can work around it with enough effort.
> >
> > What do you propose autoconf and makefiles get replaced by?
> 

> I've never built pidgin from source, but I've got the output of the binutils 
> build in a log file. 
> How many of these tests are actually necessary on an Linux system:

None, but then it's not a Linux-only program that you're compiling.
(Nor is it Linux-in-2009-only).

If you _know_ you're running on Linux from a particular era, you can
provide a config.cache file with the correct answers already filled in.

I agree that Autoconf sucks (I've written enough sucking Autoconf
macros myself, I hate it), but the tough part is providing a suitable
replacement when you still want portable source code.

> It just goes on and on and on like this.  Tests like "checking
> whether byte ordering is bigendian... no" means "Either I didn't
> know endian.h existed, or I don't trust it to be there".  How about
> the long stretches checking for the existence of header files
> specified by posix?

You seem to be arguing for "let's make all our programs Linux-specific
(and Glibc-specific in many cases)".  Given all the problems you've
seen with cross-compiling, let alone compiling for different OS
platforms, that seems a little odd.

-- Jamie

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 17 January 2009 03:51:43 Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > On Friday 16 January 2009 08:54:42 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> > > On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:11:09 CST, Rob Landley said:
> > > > P.S.  I still hope autoconf dies off and the world wakes up and moves
> > > > away from that.  And from makefiles for that matter.  But in the
> > > > meantime, I can work around it with enough effort.
> > >
> > > What do you propose autoconf and makefiles get replaced by?
> >
> > I've never built pidgin from source, but I've got the output of the
> > binutils build in a log file.
> > How many of these tests are actually necessary on an Linux system:
>
> None, but then it's not a Linux-only program that you're compiling.
> (Nor is it Linux-in-2009-only).

Yeah, I noticed.  It's not quite as bad as OpenSSL (where Linux support is 
intentionally an afterthought), but things like "Libtool" are supposed to be a 
NOP on ELF Linux and yet regularly screw up builds.  (It's supposed to do 
nothing, and can't manage to do it correctly.  That's sad.)

> If you _know_ you're running on Linux from a particular era, you can
> provide a config.cache file with the correct answers already filled in.

And yet very few projects actually do.

As for "from a particular era", just for fun I fired up the Red Hat 9 qemu 
image I keep around for this sort of thing, downloaded glibc 2.7 (the most 
recent one they bothered to cut a tarball for on ftp.gnu.org and one of the 
big autoconf offenders), and ran its ./configure.  It died with:

configure: error:
*** These critical programs are missing or too old: gcc
*** Check the INSTALL file for required versions.

So you can't build a 2 year old version of glibc under a 6 year old version of 
Linux (which was the most popular Linux version in the world when it shipped, 
with about 50% market share among Linux seats).  And yet glibc (one of the 
FSF's flagship projects) bothers doing extensive autoconf probes.  Why?  
Autoconf isn't really _helping_ here...

The bottom line is that if your assumption is that you have an open source 
application targeting an open source operating system, lots of the hoops you 
used to have to jump through just aren't very interesting anymore.

> I agree that Autoconf sucks (I've written enough sucking Autoconf
> macros myself, I hate it), but the tough part is providing a suitable
> replacement when you still want portable source code.

Depends on your definition of "portable".  The unix wars of the 80's are over; 
they're pretty much all dead.  Even the surviving legacy deployments of 
Solaris and AIX provide Linux emulation environments.  And of course FreeBSD's 
done so for years: 
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2006/01/12/Big_Scary_Daemons.html

MacOS X and windows are still very much alive, but if you want to target those 
you can either A) treat them as Posix/SUSv3 (which both _claim_ to support), 
B) use cross platform libraries like SDL and opengl and program to their APIs, 
C) bother to do a proper port of the thing ala 
http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ or http://www.kju-app.org/ or the way khtml 
wound up in Safari.

For Windows there's Cygwin, running windows programs on Linux has Wine.  Or 
just qemu/kvm in either direction.

Basically, pick a standard to write to.  If you want to write to posix and 
SUSv4, do it.  If you want to add in LSB and the Linux man pages, go for it.  
But autoconf was designed for portability between Irix and HP-UX, which just 
doesn't come up much anymore.

> > It just goes on and on and on like this.  Tests like "checking
> > whether byte ordering is bigendian... no" means "Either I didn't
> > know endian.h existed, or I don't trust it to be there".  How about
> > the long stretches checking for the existence of header files
> > specified by posix?
>
> You seem to be arguing for "let's make all our programs Linux-specific
> (and Glibc-specific in many cases)".

Checking for the existence of posix header files is Linux-specific?

I'm saying there are many standards, and you can choose to adhere to standards 
like LP64 (which MacOSX, Linux, and the BSDs all support) and _say_ you do so 
and achieve portability that way.

You also have "#if defined __linux__" and "#if defined __APPLE__" and so on, 
so header files can do a lot of the tests that people wind up doing with 
autoconf for some reason.

And there will always be platforms you're NOT portable to.  (Game consoles 
come to mind: your average autoconf recipe isn't going to make your program 
run on a PS3, XBox 360, or Wii.  Unless you load Linux on those systems first 
and program for Linux.)

> Given all the problems you've
> seen with cross-compiling, let alone compiling for different OS
> platforms, that seems a little odd.

If I can't get Linux running on the hardware (which is seldom an interesting 
case anymore; it's on everything from cell phones to the S390), and I can't 
get a Linux emulation environment like Solaris' lxrun, aix5L, or cygwin, then 
I probably want a rigidly posix environment.  (Heck, even wince has celib and 
gnuwince, not that I really care.)

The extra "portability" isn't even going to buy you 5% more seats these days.  
It's really not that interesting.  It's not that the world is homogenous now, 
it's that between open source and open standards we don't need giant if/else 
ladders with hundreds of tests to cover the interesting cases.  And trying to 
achieve portability by relying on standards is a superior approach to trying 
to achieve portability via an infinite series of special case checks.

> -- Jamie

Rob

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Vladimir Dronnikov]

> Let's look at the rationale presented so far in this thread:
>
>        1 - Being able to build the kernel natively on a constrained
>        target is useful, regardless of whether it is being used for
>        regression/stress testing or for headers installation or whatever
>        else.
>
>        2 - Cross-compiling perl is hard.
>
>        3 - Some oddly constrained target distributions manage to ship
>        with an entire toolchain yet fail to provide any implementation
>        of perl.
>
>        4 - It wasn't required before.

OK, let's see.

> If you have enough space and CPU power and
> complete build environment to crunch away at the kernel for stress
> testing natively, you can do the same with building perl and negating
> point #2.

It seems you meant "If you have enough space ... for stress testing
natively, you _MUST ALSO_ do the same with building perl  _TO JUST_
negate point #2". From this point of view your further arguments are
obvious.

>
> #2 is another byproduct of your environment and generally a non-issue.
>

So you put a constraint on environment to build kernel. Not on a
specific version of shell or gcc. But require SANE environment in
rhetoric sence. In the absence of clear specification of sane
environment it _IS_ an issue. Or simply: "sane" now reads "perlful
enough"?

>
> If there is anything I missed, feel free to add it to the list.
>

The rationale of changes being proposed is to keep people able to make
their choice on how to build and use their environment. If the code,
which now has to be generated by perl scripts, was shipped with
linux*.tar.bz2, I'd nullify the majority of my objections. Please, DO
NOT require this code to be BUILT, and many would again be happy. You
see, the total question is then reduces to some changes in makefiles
(eliminating FORCE prerequisites).

Otherwise you just force the number of people to invent and maintain
"regress" patches, which is counter-progressive in all sences.

Best regards,
--
Vladimir V. Dronnikov

Re: PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl.

[Vladimir Dronnikov]

> Let's look at the rationale presented so far in this thread:
>
>        1 - Being able to build the kernel natively on a constrained
>        target is useful, regardless of whether it is being used for
>        regression/stress testing or for headers installation or whatever
>        else.
>
>        2 - Cross-compiling perl is hard.
>
>        3 - Some oddly constrained target distributions manage to ship
>        with an entire toolchain yet fail to provide any implementation
>        of perl.
>
>        4 - It wasn't required before.

OK, let's see.

> If you have enough space and CPU power and
> complete build environment to crunch away at the kernel for stress
> testing natively, you can do the same with building perl and negating
> point #2.

It seems you meant "If you have enough space ... for stress testing
natively, you _MUST ALSO_ do the same with building perl  _TO JUST_
negate point #2". From this point of view your further arguments are
obvious.

>
> #2 is another byproduct of your environment and generally a non-issue.
>

So you put a constraint on environment to build kernel. Not on a
specific version of shell or gcc. But require SANE environment in
rhetoric sence. In the absence of clear specification of sane
environment it _IS_ an issue. Or simply: "sane" now reads "perlful
enough"?

>
> If there is anything I missed, feel free to add it to the list.
>

The rationale of changes being proposed is to keep people able to make
their choice on how to build and use their environment. If the code,
which now has to be generated by perl scripts, was shipped with
linux*.tar.bz2, I'd nullify the majority of my objections. Please, DO
NOT require this code to be BUILT, and many would again be happy. You
see, the total question is then reduces to some changes in makefiles
(eliminating FORCE prerequisites).

Otherwise you just force the number of people to invent and maintain
"regress" patches, which is counter-progressive in all sences.

Best regards,
--
Vladimir V. Dronnikov

PATCH [0/3]: Simplify the kernel build by removing perl v2

[Rob Landley]

Here's an updated set of patches to remove use of perl from the kernel build's 
"hot path" (roughly defined as "make allnoconfig; make; make 
headers_install").

This update incorporates feedback from Sam Ravnborg, Ted Tso, Joe Perches, 
Ingo Oeser, and others.  It also fixes an integer overflow error in the first 
patch, and all three scripts have been retested under dash.

PATCH [1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh (v2)

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell script
is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.

It requires a shell which can do 64 bit math, such as bash, busybox ash,
or dash running on a 64 bit host.

Changes from previous version:

Redo ADJ32 math to avoid integer overflow for small HZ sizes (such as 24 or
122).  In the pathological case (HZ=1) both versions now produce
USEC_TO_HZ_ADJ32 of 0x7ffff79c842fa.  (See source comments for details.)

Also expand usage message, add error message when no 64 bit math available in
shell (and suggest some shells that support it), add whitespace around
operators in equations, added underscores before __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H, change
makefile so script is responsible for creating output file, make script delete 
output file on error, change shebang to #!/bin/sh and test with dash and bash.

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

 kernel/Makefile     |    4 
 kernel/timeconst.pl |  378 ------------------------------------------
 kernel/timeconst.sh |  149 ++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 151 insertions(+), 380 deletions(-)

--- linux-2.6.28/kernel/timeconst.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ /dev/null	2008-11-21 04:46:41.000000000 -0600
@@ -1,378 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl
-# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#
-#   Copyright 2007-2008 rPath, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
-#
-#   This file is part of the Linux kernel, and is made available under
-#   the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or (at your
-#   option) any later version; incorporated herein by reference.
-#
-# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#
-
-#
-# Usage: timeconst.pl HZ > timeconst.h
-#
-
-# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt
-# Generated by:
-# timeconst.pl --can 24 32 48 64 100 122 128 200 250 256 300 512 1000 1024 1200
-%canned_values = (
-	24 => [
-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x2aaaaaa',26,
-		125,3,
-		'0xc49ba5e4','0x1fbe76c8b4',37,
-		3,125,
-		'0xa2c2aaab','0xaaaa',16,
-		125000,3,
-		'0xc9539b89','0x7fffbce4217d',47,
-		3,125000,
-	], 32 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x6000000',27,
-		125,4,
-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645a',36,
-		4,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x0',17,
-		31250,1,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x3fff79c842fa',46,
-		1,31250,
-	], 48 => [
-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x6aaaaaa',27,
-		125,6,
-		'0xc49ba5e4','0xfdf3b645a',36,
-		6,125,
-		'0xa2c2aaab','0x15555',17,
-		62500,3,
-		'0xc9539b89','0x3fffbce4217d',46,
-		3,62500,
-	], 64 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0xe000000',28,
-		125,8,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22d',35,
-		8,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x0',18,
-		15625,1,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842fa',45,
-		1,15625,
-	], 100 => [
-		'0xa0000000','0x0',28,
-		10,1,
-		'0xcccccccd','0x733333333',35,
-		1,10,
-		'0x9c400000','0x0',18,
-		10000,1,
-		'0xd1b71759','0x1fff2e48e8a7',45,
-		1,10000,
-	], 122 => [
-		'0x8325c53f','0xfbcda3a',28,
-		500,61,
-		'0xf9db22d1','0x7fbe76c8b',35,
-		61,500,
-		'0x8012e2a0','0x3ef36',18,
-		500000,61,
-		'0xffda4053','0x1ffffbce4217',45,
-		61,500000,
-	], 128 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x1e000000',29,
-		125,16,
-		'0x83126e98','0x3f7ced916',34,
-		16,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x40000',19,
-		15625,2,
-		'0x8637bd06','0xfffbce4217d',44,
-		2,15625,
-	], 200 => [
-		'0xa0000000','0x0',29,
-		5,1,
-		'0xcccccccd','0x333333333',34,
-		1,5,
-		'0x9c400000','0x0',19,
-		5000,1,
-		'0xd1b71759','0xfff2e48e8a7',44,
-		1,5000,
-	], 250 => [
-		'0x80000000','0x0',29,
-		4,1,
-		'0x80000000','0x180000000',33,
-		1,4,
-		'0xfa000000','0x0',20,
-		4000,1,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ff7ced9168',43,
-		1,4000,
-	], 256 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x3e000000',30,
-		125,32,
-		'0x83126e98','0x1fbe76c8b',33,
-		32,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0xc0000',20,
-		15625,4,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x7ffde7210be',43,
-		4,15625,
-	], 300 => [
-		'0xd5555556','0x2aaaaaaa',30,
-		10,3,
-		'0x9999999a','0x1cccccccc',33,
-		3,10,
-		'0xd0555556','0xaaaaa',20,
-		10000,3,
-		'0x9d495183','0x7ffcb923a29',43,
-		3,10000,
-	], 512 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x7e000000',31,
-		125,64,
-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645',32,
-		64,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x1c0000',21,
-		15625,8,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x3ffef39085f',42,
-		8,15625,
-	], 1000 => [
-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,
-		1,1,
-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,
-		1,1,
-		'0xfa000000','0x0',22,
-		1000,1,
-		'0x83126e98','0x1ff7ced9168',41,
-		1,1000,
-	], 1024 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0xfe000000',32,
-		125,128,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22',31,
-		128,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x3c0000',22,
-		15625,16,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842f',41,
-		16,15625,
-	], 1200 => [
-		'0xd5555556','0xd5555555',32,
-		5,6,
-		'0x9999999a','0x66666666',31,
-		6,5,
-		'0xd0555556','0x2aaaaa',22,
-		2500,3,
-		'0x9d495183','0x1ffcb923a29',41,
-		3,2500,
-	]
-);
-
-$has_bigint = eval 'use Math::BigInt qw(bgcd); 1;';
-
-sub bint($)
-{
-	my($x) = @_;
-	return Math::BigInt->new($x);
-}
-
-#
-# Constants for division by reciprocal multiplication.
-# (bits, numerator, denominator)
-#
-sub fmul($$$)
-{
-	my ($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	return scalar (($n << $b)+$d-bint(1))/$d;
-}
-
-sub fadj($$$)
-{
-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	$d = $d/bgcd($n, $d);
-	return scalar (($d-bint(1)) << $b)/$d;
-}
-
-sub fmuls($$$) {
-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-	my($s,$m);
-	my($thres) = bint(1) << ($b-1);
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	for ($s = 0; 1; $s++) {
-		$m = fmul($s,$n,$d);
-		return $s if ($m >= $thres);
-	}
-	return 0;
-}
-
-# Generate a hex value if the result fits in 64 bits;
-# otherwise skip.
-sub bignum_hex($) {
-	my($x) = @_;
-	my $s = $x->as_hex();
-
-	return (length($s) > 18) ? undef : $s;
-}
-
-# Provides mul, adj, and shr factors for a specific
-# (bit, time, hz) combination
-sub muladj($$$) {
-	my($b, $t, $hz) = @_;
-	my $s = fmuls($b, $t, $hz);
-	my $m = fmul($s, $t, $hz);
-	my $a = fadj($s, $t, $hz);
-	return (bignum_hex($m), bignum_hex($a), $s);
-}
-
-# Provides numerator, denominator values
-sub numden($$) {
-	my($n, $d) = @_;
-	my $g = bgcd($n, $d);
-	return ($n/$g, $d/$g);
-}
-
-# All values for a specific (time, hz) combo
-sub conversions($$) {
-	my ($t, $hz) = @_;
-	my @val = ();
-
-	# HZ_TO_xx
-	push(@val, muladj(32, $t, $hz));
-	push(@val, numden($t, $hz));
-
-	# xx_TO_HZ
-	push(@val, muladj(32, $hz, $t));
-	push(@val, numden($hz, $t));
-
-	return @val;
-}
-
-sub compute_values($) {
-	my($hz) = @_;
-	my @val = ();
-	my $s, $m, $a, $g;
-
-	if (!$has_bigint) {
-		die "$0: HZ == $hz not canned and ".
-		    "Math::BigInt not available\n";
-	}
-
-	# MSEC conversions
-	push(@val, conversions(1000, $hz));
-
-	# USEC conversions
-	push(@val, conversions(1000000, $hz));
-
-	return @val;
-}
-
-sub outputval($$)
-{
-	my($name, $val) = @_;
-	my $csuf;
-
-	if (defined($val)) {
-	    if ($name !~ /SHR/) {
-		$val = "U64_C($val)";
-	    }
-	    printf "#define %-23s %s\n", $name.$csuf, $val.$csuf;
-	}
-}
-
-sub output($@)
-{
-	my($hz, @val) = @_;
-	my $pfx, $bit, $suf, $s, $m, $a;
-
-	print "/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.pl */\n";
-	print "/* Conversion constants for HZ == $hz */\n";
-	print "\n";
-	print "#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";
-	print "#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";
-	print "\n";
-
-	print "#include <linux/param.h>\n";
-	print "#include <linux/types.h>\n";
-
-	print "\n";
-	print "#if HZ != $hz\n";
-	print "#error \"kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!\"\n";
-	print "#endif\n";
-	print "\n";
-
-	foreach $pfx ('HZ_TO_MSEC','MSEC_TO_HZ',
-		      'HZ_TO_USEC','USEC_TO_HZ') {
-		foreach $bit (32) {
-			foreach $suf ('MUL', 'ADJ', 'SHR') {
-				outputval("${pfx}_$suf$bit", shift(@val));
-			}
-		}
-		foreach $suf ('NUM', 'DEN') {
-			outputval("${pfx}_$suf", shift(@val));
-		}
-	}
-
-	print "\n";
-	print "#endif /* KERNEL_TIMECONST_H */\n";
-}
-
-# Pretty-print Perl values
-sub perlvals(@) {
-	my $v;
-	my @l = ();
-
-	foreach $v (@_) {
-		if (!defined($v)) {
-			push(@l, 'undef');
-		} elsif ($v =~ /^0x/) {
-			push(@l, "\'".$v."\'");
-		} else {
-			push(@l, $v.'');
-		}
-	}
-	return join(',', @l);
-}
-
-($hz) = @ARGV;
-
-# Use this to generate the %canned_values structure
-if ($hz eq '--can') {
-	shift(@ARGV);
-	@hzlist = sort {$a <=> $b} (@ARGV);
-
-	print "# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt\n";
-	print "# Generated by:\n";
-	print "# timeconst.pl --can ", join(' ', @hzlist), "\n";
-	print "\%canned_values = (\n";
-	my $pf = "\t";
-	foreach $hz (@hzlist) {
-		my @values = compute_values($hz);
-		print "$pf$hz => [\n";
-		while (scalar(@values)) {
-			my $bit;
-			foreach $bit (32) {
-				my $m = shift(@values);
-				my $a = shift(@values);
-				my $s = shift(@values);
-				print "\t\t", perlvals($m,$a,$s), ",\n";
-			}
-			my $n = shift(@values);
-			my $d = shift(@values);
-			print "\t\t", perlvals($n,$d), ",\n";
-		}
-		print "\t]";
-		$pf = ', ';
-	}
-	print "\n);\n";
-} else {
-	$hz += 0;			# Force to number
-	if ($hz < 1) {
-		die "Usage: $0 HZ\n";
-	}
-
-	@val = @{$canned_values{$hz}};
-	if (!defined(@val)) {
-		@val = compute_values($hz);
-	}
-	output($hz, @val);
-}
-exit 0;
--- /dev/null	2008-11-21 04:46:41.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-01-03 15:24:01.000000000 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,147 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+if [ $# -ne 2 ]
+then
+	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ FILENAME"
+	echo
+	echo "Generate a header file with constants for coverting between"
+	echo "decimal HZ timer ticks and milisecond or microsecond delays."
+	echo
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+HZ=$1
+shift
+FILENAME=$1
+
+# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit math.
+
+if [ $((1 << 32)) -lt 0 ]
+then
+	echo "timeconst.sh needs a shell with 64 bit math, such as bash,"
+	echo "busybox ash, or dash running on a 64 bit host."
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+# If this script exits for any reason before this trap is removed,
+# delete the output file so a partial file won't confuse the build.
+
+trap "rm $FILENAME" EXIT
+
+# Output start of header file
+
+cat > $FILENAME << EOF || exit 1
+/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */
+/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */
+
+#ifndef __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
+#define __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
+
+#include <linux/param.h>
+#include <linux/types.h>
+
+#if HZ != $HZ
+#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"
+#endif
+
+EOF
+
+# For both Milliseconds and Microseconds
+
+for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"
+do
+	NAME=$(echo $i | cut -d ' ' -f 1)
+	PERIOD=$(echo $i | cut -d ' ' -f 2)
+
+	# Find greatest common denominator (using Euclid's algorithm)
+
+	A=$HZ
+	B=$PERIOD
+
+	while [ $B -ne 0 ]
+	do
+		C=$(( $A % $B ))
+		A=$B
+		B=$C
+	done
+
+	GCD=$A
+
+	# Do this for each direction (HZ_TO_PERIOD and PERIOD_TO_HZ)
+
+	for DIRECTION in 0 1
+	do
+		if [ $DIRECTION -eq 0 ]
+		then
+			CONVERT="HZ_TO_${NAME}"
+			FROM=$HZ
+			TO=$PERIOD
+		else
+			CONVERT="${NAME}_TO_HZ"
+			FROM=$PERIOD
+			TO=$HZ
+		fi
+
+		# Calculate 32 significant bits of MUL32 data.
+
+		SHIFT=0
+		while true
+		do
+			# This can't overflow 64 bit math.  Pathological case
+			# (TO=1, FROM=1000000) uses around 32+20=52 bits.
+
+			MUL32=$(( ( ( $TO << $SHIFT ) + $FROM - 1 ) / $FROM ))
+
+			# Keep increasing $SHIFT until we've got 32 bits.
+
+			[ $MUL32 -gt $(( 1 << 31 )) ] && break
+			SHIFT=$(( $SHIFT + 1 ))
+		done
+		MUL32=$( printf %x $MUL32 )
+
+		# ADJ32 is just (((FROM/GCD)-1)<<SHIFT)/(FROM/GCD) but this
+		# can overflow 64 bit math (examples, HZ=24 or HZ=122).
+		# Pathological case could use 32+20+20=72 bits.  (And this is
+		# the pathological case because a larger $HZ results in a
+		# smaller $SHIFT, so even insane HZ>USEC cases should be ok.)
+
+		# To get around this, we chop the bottom 32 bits off the
+		# calculation and then reassemble it to avoid overflow:
+		# 32+64=96, which is > 72.
+
+		ADJ32=$(( $FROM / $GCD ))
+		if [ $SHIFT -gt 32 ]
+		then
+			UPPER=$(( ( $ADJ32 - 1 ) << ( $SHIFT - 32 ) ))
+			LOWER=$(( ( $UPPER % $ADJ32 ) << 32 ))
+			ADJ32=$(( ( ( $UPPER / $ADJ32 ) << 32 ) + ( $LOWER / $ADJ32 )))
+		else
+			ADJ32=$(( ( ( $ADJ32 - 1 ) << $SHIFT) / $ADJ32 ))
+		fi
+		ADJ32=$( printf %x $ADJ32 )
+
+		NUM=$(( $TO / $GCD ))
+		DEN=$(( $FROM / $GCD ))
+
+		# Output next chunk of header data to file
+
+		(
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_MUL32	U64_C(0x$MUL32)" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_ADJ32	U64_C(0x$ADJ32)" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_SHR32	$SHIFT" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_NUM		U64_C($NUM)" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_DEN		U64_C($DEN)"
+		) >> $FILENAME || exit 1
+	done
+done
+
+(
+	echo
+	echo "#endif /* __KERNEL_TIMECHONST_H */"
+) >> $FILENAME || exit 1
+
+# Don't rm $FILENAME on exit anymore.
+
+trap "" EXIT
+
+exit 0
--- linux-2.6.28/kernel/Makefile	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/kernel/Makefile	2009-01-03 00:40:21.000000000 -0600
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@
 $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h
 
 quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@
-      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
+      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) $@
 targets += timeconst.h
-$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE
+$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE
 	$(call if_changed,timeconst)
\0

PATCH [1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh (v2)

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell scriptis much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.
It requires a shell which can do 64 bit math, such as bash, busybox ash,or dash running on a 64 bit host.
Changes from previous version:
Redo ADJ32 math to avoid integer overflow for small HZ sizes (such as 24 or122).  In the pathological case (HZ=1) both versions now produceUSEC_TO_HZ_ADJ32 of 0x7ffff79c842fa.  (See source comments for details.)
Also expand usage message, add error message when no 64 bit math available inshell (and suggest some shells that support it), add whitespace aroundoperators in equations, added underscores before __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H, changemakefile so script is responsible for creating output file, make script delete output file on error, change shebang to #!/bin/sh and test with dash and bash.
Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>---
 kernel/Makefile     |    4  kernel/timeconst.pl |  378 ------------------------------------------ kernel/timeconst.sh |  149 ++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 151 insertions(+), 380 deletions(-)
--- linux-2.6.28/kernel/timeconst.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ /dev/null	2008-11-21 04:46:41.000000000 -0600@@ -1,378 +0,0 @@-#!/usr/bin/perl-# ------------------------------------------------------------------------#-#   Copyright 2007-2008 rPath, Inc. - All Rights Reserved-#-#   This file is part of the Linux kernel, and is made available under-#   the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or (at your-#   option) any later version; incorporated herein by reference.-#-# ------------------------------------------------------------------------#--#-# Usage: timeconst.pl HZ > timeconst.h-#--# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt-# Generated by:-# timeconst.pl --can 24 32 48 64 100 122 128 200 250 256 300 512 1000 1024 1200-%canned_values = (-	24 => [-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x2aaaaaa',26,-		125,3,-		'0xc49ba5e4','0x1fbe76c8b4',37,-		3,125,-		'0xa2c2aaab','0xaaaa',16,-		125000,3,-		'0xc9539b89','0x7fffbce4217d',47,-		3,125000,-	], 32 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x6000000',27,-		125,4,-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645a',36,-		4,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x0',17,-		31250,1,-		'0x8637bd06','0x3fff79c842fa',46,-		1,31250,-	], 48 => [-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x6aaaaaa',27,-		125,6,-		'0xc49ba5e4','0xfdf3b645a',36,-		6,125,-		'0xa2c2aaab','0x15555',17,-		62500,3,-		'0xc9539b89','0x3fffbce4217d',46,-		3,62500,-	], 64 => [-		'0xfa000000','0xe000000',28,-		125,8,-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22d',35,-		8,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x0',18,-		15625,1,-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842fa',45,-		1,15625,-	], 100 => [-		'0xa0000000','0x0',28,-		10,1,-		'0xcccccccd','0x733333333',35,-		1,10,-		'0x9c400000','0x0',18,-		10000,1,-		'0xd1b71759','0x1fff2e48e8a7',45,-		1,10000,-	], 122 => [-		'0x8325c53f','0xfbcda3a',28,-		500,61,-		'0xf9db22d1','0x7fbe76c8b',35,-		61,500,-		'0x8012e2a0','0x3ef36',18,-		500000,61,-		'0xffda4053','0x1ffffbce4217',45,-		61,500000,-	], 128 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x1e000000',29,-		125,16,-		'0x83126e98','0x3f7ced916',34,-		16,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x40000',19,-		15625,2,-		'0x8637bd06','0xfffbce4217d',44,-		2,15625,-	], 200 => [-		'0xa0000000','0x0',29,-		5,1,-		'0xcccccccd','0x333333333',34,-		1,5,-		'0x9c400000','0x0',19,-		5000,1,-		'0xd1b71759','0xfff2e48e8a7',44,-		1,5000,-	], 250 => [-		'0x80000000','0x0',29,-		4,1,-		'0x80000000','0x180000000',33,-		1,4,-		'0xfa000000','0x0',20,-		4000,1,-		'0x83126e98','0x7ff7ced9168',43,-		1,4000,-	], 256 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x3e000000',30,-		125,32,-		'0x83126e98','0x1fbe76c8b',33,-		32,125,-		'0xf4240000','0xc0000',20,-		15625,4,-		'0x8637bd06','0x7ffde7210be',43,-		4,15625,-	], 300 => [-		'0xd5555556','0x2aaaaaaa',30,-		10,3,-		'0x9999999a','0x1cccccccc',33,-		3,10,-		'0xd0555556','0xaaaaa',20,-		10000,3,-		'0x9d495183','0x7ffcb923a29',43,-		3,10000,-	], 512 => [-		'0xfa000000','0x7e000000',31,-		125,64,-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645',32,-		64,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x1c0000',21,-		15625,8,-		'0x8637bd06','0x3ffef39085f',42,-		8,15625,-	], 1000 => [-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,-		1,1,-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,-		1,1,-		'0xfa000000','0x0',22,-		1000,1,-		'0x83126e98','0x1ff7ced9168',41,-		1,1000,-	], 1024 => [-		'0xfa000000','0xfe000000',32,-		125,128,-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22',31,-		128,125,-		'0xf4240000','0x3c0000',22,-		15625,16,-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842f',41,-		16,15625,-	], 1200 => [-		'0xd5555556','0xd5555555',32,-		5,6,-		'0x9999999a','0x66666666',31,-		6,5,-		'0xd0555556','0x2aaaaa',22,-		2500,3,-		'0x9d495183','0x1ffcb923a29',41,-		3,2500,-	]-);--$has_bigint = eval 'use Math::BigInt qw(bgcd); 1;';--sub bint($)-{-	my($x) = @_;-	return Math::BigInt->new($x);-}--#-# Constants for division by reciprocal multiplication.-# (bits, numerator, denominator)-#-sub fmul($$$)-{-	my ($b,$n,$d) = @_;--	$n = bint($n);-	$d = bint($d);--	return scalar (($n << $b)+$d-bint(1))/$d;-}--sub fadj($$$)-{-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;--	$n = bint($n);-	$d = bint($d);--	$d = $d/bgcd($n, $d);-	return scalar (($d-bint(1)) << $b)/$d;-}--sub fmuls($$$) {-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;-	my($s,$m);-	my($thres) = bint(1) << ($b-1);--	$n = bint($n);-	$d = bint($d);--	for ($s = 0; 1; $s++) {-		$m = fmul($s,$n,$d);-		return $s if ($m >= $thres);-	}-	return 0;-}--# Generate a hex value if the result fits in 64 bits;-# otherwise skip.-sub bignum_hex($) {-	my($x) = @_;-	my $s = $x->as_hex();--	return (length($s) > 18) ? undef : $s;-}--# Provides mul, adj, and shr factors for a specific-# (bit, time, hz) combination-sub muladj($$$) {-	my($b, $t, $hz) = @_;-	my $s = fmuls($b, $t, $hz);-	my $m = fmul($s, $t, $hz);-	my $a = fadj($s, $t, $hz);-	return (bignum_hex($m), bignum_hex($a), $s);-}--# Provides numerator, denominator values-sub numden($$) {-	my($n, $d) = @_;-	my $g = bgcd($n, $d);-	return ($n/$g, $d/$g);-}--# All values for a specific (time, hz) combo-sub conversions($$) {-	my ($t, $hz) = @_;-	my @val = ();--	# HZ_TO_xx-	push(@val, muladj(32, $t, $hz));-	push(@val, numden($t, $hz));--	# xx_TO_HZ-	push(@val, muladj(32, $hz, $t));-	push(@val, numden($hz, $t));--	return @val;-}--sub compute_values($) {-	my($hz) = @_;-	my @val = ();-	my $s, $m, $a, $g;--	if (!$has_bigint) {-		die "$0: HZ == $hz not canned and ".-		    "Math::BigInt not available\n";-	}--	# MSEC conversions-	push(@val, conversions(1000, $hz));--	# USEC conversions-	push(@val, conversions(1000000, $hz));--	return @val;-}--sub outputval($$)-{-	my($name, $val) = @_;-	my $csuf;--	if (defined($val)) {-	    if ($name !~ /SHR/) {-		$val = "U64_C($val)";-	    }-	    printf "#define %-23s %s\n", $name.$csuf, $val.$csuf;-	}-}--sub output($@)-{-	my($hz, @val) = @_;-	my $pfx, $bit, $suf, $s, $m, $a;--	print "/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.pl */\n";-	print "/* Conversion constants for HZ == $hz */\n";-	print "\n";-	print "#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";-	print "#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";-	print "\n";--	print "#include <linux/param.h>\n";-	print "#include <linux/types.h>\n";--	print "\n";-	print "#if HZ != $hz\n";-	print "#error \"kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!\"\n";-	print "#endif\n";-	print "\n";--	foreach $pfx ('HZ_TO_MSEC','MSEC_TO_HZ',-		      'HZ_TO_USEC','USEC_TO_HZ') {-		foreach $bit (32) {-			foreach $suf ('MUL', 'ADJ', 'SHR') {-				outputval("${pfx}_$suf$bit", shift(@val));-			}-		}-		foreach $suf ('NUM', 'DEN') {-			outputval("${pfx}_$suf", shift(@val));-		}-	}--	print "\n";-	print "#endif /* KERNEL_TIMECONST_H */\n";-}--# Pretty-print Perl values-sub perlvals(@) {-	my $v;-	my @l = ();--	foreach $v (@_) {-		if (!defined($v)) {-			push(@l, 'undef');-		} elsif ($v =~ /^0x/) {-			push(@l, "\'".$v."\'");-		} else {-			push(@l, $v.'');-		}-	}-	return join(',', @l);-}--($hz) = @ARGV;--# Use this to generate the %canned_values structure-if ($hz eq '--can') {-	shift(@ARGV);-	@hzlist = sort {$a <=> $b} (@ARGV);--	print "# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt\n";-	print "# Generated by:\n";-	print "# timeconst.pl --can ", join(' ', @hzlist), "\n";-	print "\%canned_values = (\n";-	my $pf = "\t";-	foreach $hz (@hzlist) {-		my @values = compute_values($hz);-		print "$pf$hz => [\n";-		while (scalar(@values)) {-			my $bit;-			foreach $bit (32) {-				my $m = shift(@values);-				my $a = shift(@values);-				my $s = shift(@values);-				print "\t\t", perlvals($m,$a,$s), ",\n";-			}-			my $n = shift(@values);-			my $d = shift(@values);-			print "\t\t", perlvals($n,$d), ",\n";-		}-		print "\t]";-		$pf = ', ';-	}-	print "\n);\n";-} else {-	$hz += 0;			# Force to number-	if ($hz < 1) {-		die "Usage: $0 HZ\n";-	}--	@val = @{$canned_values{$hz}};-	if (!defined(@val)) {-		@val = compute_values($hz);-	}-	output($hz, @val);-}-exit 0;--- /dev/null	2008-11-21 04:46:41.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-01-03 15:24:01.000000000 -0600@@ -0,0 +1,147 @@+#!/bin/sh++if [ $# -ne 2 ]+then+	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ FILENAME"+	echo+	echo "Generate a header file with constants for coverting between"+	echo "decimal HZ timer ticks and milisecond or microsecond delays."+	echo+	exit 1+fi++HZ=$1+shift+FILENAME=$1++# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit math.++if [ $((1 << 32)) -lt 0 ]+then+	echo "timeconst.sh needs a shell with 64 bit math, such as bash,"+	echo "busybox ash, or dash running on a 64 bit host."+	exit 1+fi++# If this script exits for any reason before this trap is removed,+# delete the output file so a partial file won't confuse the build.++trap "rm $FILENAME" EXIT++# Output start of header file++cat > $FILENAME << EOF || exit 1+/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */+/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */++#ifndef __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H+#define __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H++#include <linux/param.h>+#include <linux/types.h>++#if HZ != $HZ+#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"+#endif++EOF++# For both Milliseconds and Microseconds++for i in "MSEC 1000" "USEC 1000000"+do+	NAME=$(echo $i | cut -d ' ' -f 1)+	PERIOD=$(echo $i | cut -d ' ' -f 2)++	# Find greatest common denominator (using Euclid's algorithm)++	A=$HZ+	B=$PERIOD++	while [ $B -ne 0 ]+	do+		C=$(( $A % $B ))+		A=$B+		B=$C+	done++	GCD=$A++	# Do this for each direction (HZ_TO_PERIOD and PERIOD_TO_HZ)++	for DIRECTION in 0 1+	do+		if [ $DIRECTION -eq 0 ]+		then+			CONVERT="HZ_TO_${NAME}"+			FROM=$HZ+			TO=$PERIOD+		else+			CONVERT="${NAME}_TO_HZ"+			FROM=$PERIOD+			TO=$HZ+		fi++		# Calculate 32 significant bits of MUL32 data.++		SHIFT=0+		while true+		do+			# This can't overflow 64 bit math.  Pathological case+			# (TO=1, FROM=1000000) uses around 32+20=52 bits.++			MUL32=$(( ( ( $TO << $SHIFT ) + $FROM - 1 ) / $FROM ))++			# Keep increasing $SHIFT until we've got 32 bits.++			[ $MUL32 -gt $(( 1 << 31 )) ] && break+			SHIFT=$(( $SHIFT + 1 ))+		done+		MUL32=$( printf %x $MUL32 )++		# ADJ32 is just (((FROM/GCD)-1)<<SHIFT)/(FROM/GCD) but this+		# can overflow 64 bit math (examples, HZ=24 or HZ=122).+		# Pathological case could use 32+20+20=72 bits.  (And this is+		# the pathological case because a larger $HZ results in a+		# smaller $SHIFT, so even insane HZ>USEC cases should be ok.)++		# To get around this, we chop the bottom 32 bits off the+		# calculation and then reassemble it to avoid overflow:+		# 32+64=96, which is > 72.++		ADJ32=$(( $FROM / $GCD ))+		if [ $SHIFT -gt 32 ]+		then+			UPPER=$(( ( $ADJ32 - 1 ) << ( $SHIFT - 32 ) ))+			LOWER=$(( ( $UPPER % $ADJ32 ) << 32 ))+			ADJ32=$(( ( ( $UPPER / $ADJ32 ) << 32 ) + ( $LOWER / $ADJ32 )))+		else+			ADJ32=$(( ( ( $ADJ32 - 1 ) << $SHIFT) / $ADJ32 ))+		fi+		ADJ32=$( printf %x $ADJ32 )++		NUM=$(( $TO / $GCD ))+		DEN=$(( $FROM / $GCD ))++		# Output next chunk of header data to file++		(+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_MUL32	U64_C(0x$MUL32)" &&+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_ADJ32	U64_C(0x$ADJ32)" &&+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_SHR32	$SHIFT" &&+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_NUM		U64_C($NUM)" &&+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_DEN		U64_C($DEN)"+		) >> $FILENAME || exit 1+	done+done++(+	echo+	echo "#endif /* __KERNEL_TIMECHONST_H */"+) >> $FILENAME || exit 1++# Don't rm $FILENAME on exit anymore.++trap "" EXIT++exit 0--- linux-2.6.28/kernel/Makefile	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/kernel/Makefile	2009-01-03 00:40:21.000000000 -0600@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h  quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@-      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@+      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) $@ targets += timeconst.h-$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE+$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE 	$(call if_changed,timeconst)\0ÿôèº{.nÇ+‰·Ÿ®‰­†+%ŠËÿ±éݶ\x17¥Šwÿº{.nÇ+‰·¥Š{±þG«éÿŠ{ayº\x1dʇڙë,j\a­¢f£¢·hšïêÿ‘êçz_è®\x03(­éšŽŠÝ¢j"ú\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿ¾\a«þG«éÿ¢¸?™¨è­Ú&£ø§~á¶iO•æ¬z·švØ^\x14\x04\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿÃ\fÿ¶ìÿ¢¸?–I¥

Re: PATCH [1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh (v2)

[David Vrabel]

Rob Landley wrote:
> From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> 
> Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell script
> is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.
> 
> It requires a shell which can do 64 bit math, such as bash, busybox ash,
> or dash running on a 64 bit host.

I use Ubuntu (hence dash) on 32 bit systems so I think this needs to 
work with dash on 32 bit hosts.

David

Re: PATCH [1/3]: Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh (v2)

[Rob Landley]

On Saturday 03 January 2009 20:48:21 David Vrabel wrote:
> Rob Landley wrote:
> > From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
> >
> > Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell
> > script is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from
> > 2003.
> >
> > It requires a shell which can do 64 bit math, such as bash, busybox ash,
> > or dash running on a 64 bit host.
>
> I use Ubuntu (hence dash) on 32 bit systems so I think this needs to
> work with dash on 32 bit hosts.

I have a qemu/images directory full of various OS images for testing purposes.

I just fired up my jeos 7.10 image to make sure that even the most stripped-
down version of Ubuntu ("just enough operating system) still installs bash by 
default, and it does.  (It doesn't install a development toolchain, but it 
does install bash.)

I also installed a 32 bit xubuntu 8.10 image (which took 4 hours for some 
reason, and which also has bash), and explicitly tested its 32-bit 
"/bin/dash", and that did 64-bit math too.  So current versions of dash do 
offer 64 bit math on 32 bit platforms.

> David

Rob

PATCH [2/3]: Remove perl from make headers_install.

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Remove perl from make headers_install by replacing a perl script (doing
a simple regex search and replace) with a smaller and faster shell script
implementation.  The new shell script is a single for loop calling sed and
piping its output through unifdef to produce the target file.

Changes from previous version: Added help text and a check for the right
number of arguments.  Removed unused ARCH input from script and makefile
(the makefile incorporates ARCH into INDIR, so the script doesn't care),
fixed a whitespace mistake in the makefile pointed out by Sam Ravnborg,
changed the shebang to #!/bin/sh and tested under bash and dash.


put_changelog_here

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

 scripts/Makefile.headersinst |    6 ++--
 scripts/headers_install.pl   |   46 ---------------------------------
 scripts/headers_install.sh   |   36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)

diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.sh linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.sh
--- linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.sh	2009-01-02 22:35:17.000000000 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+if [ $# -lt 2 ]
+then
+	echo "Usage: headers_install.sh INDIR OUTDIR [FILES...]
+	echo
+	echo "Prepares kernel header files for use by user space, by removing"
+	echo "all compiler.h definitions and #includes, and removing any"
+	echo "#ifdef __KERNEL__ sections."
+	echo
+	echo "INDIR:  directory to read each kernel header FILE from."
+	echo "OUTDIR: directory to write each userspace header FILE to."
+	echo "FILES:  list of header files to operate on."
+
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+# Grab arguments
+
+INDIR="$1"
+shift
+OUTDIR="$1"
+shift
+
+# Iterate through files listed on command line
+
+for i in "$@"
+do
+	sed -r \
+		-e 's/([ \t(])(__user|__force|__iomem)[ \t]/\1/g' \
+		-e 's/__attribute_const__([ \t]|$)/\1/g' \
+		-e 's@^#include <linux/compiler.h>@@' "$INDIR/$i" |
+	scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__ - > "$OUTDIR/$i"
+done
+
+exit 0
diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/scripts/Makefile.headersinst linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/Makefile.headersinst
--- linux-2.6.28/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	2009-01-02 22:36:42.000000000 -0600
@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@
 quiet_cmd_install = INSTALL $(printdir) ($(words $(all-files))\
                             file$(if $(word 2, $(all-files)),s))
       cmd_install = \
-        $(PERL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \
-        $(PERL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \
+      $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(header-y); \
+      $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(objhdr-y); \
         touch $@
 
 quiet_cmd_remove = REMOVE  $(unwanted)
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@
 	@:
 
 targets += $(install-file)
-$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.pl $(input-files) FORCE
+$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.sh $(input-files) FORCE
 	$(if $(unwanted),$(call cmd,remove),)
 	$(if $(wildcard $(dir $@)),,$(shell mkdir -p $(dir $@)))
 	$(call if_changed,install)
diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.pl linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.pl
--- linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl -w
-#
-# headers_install prepare the listed header files for use in
-# user space and copy the files to their destination.
-#
-# Usage: headers_install.pl readdir installdir arch [files...]
-# readdir:    dir to open files
-# installdir: dir to install the files
-# arch:       current architecture
-#             arch is used to force a reinstallation when the arch
-#             changes because kbuild then detect a command line change.
-# files:      list of files to check
-#
-# Step in preparation for users space:
-# 1) Drop all use of compiler.h definitions
-# 2) Drop include of compiler.h
-# 3) Drop all sections defined out by __KERNEL__ (using unifdef)
-
-use strict;
-
-my ($readdir, $installdir, $arch, @files) = @ARGV;
-
-my $unifdef = "scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__";
-
-foreach my $file (@files) {
-	local *INFILE;
-	local *OUTFILE;
-	my $tmpfile = "$installdir/$file.tmp";
-	open(INFILE, "<$readdir/$file")
-		or die "$readdir/$file: $!\n";
-	open(OUTFILE, ">$tmpfile") or die "$tmpfile: $!\n";
-	while (my $line = <INFILE>) {
-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__user\s/$1/g;
-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__force\s/$1/g;
-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__iomem\s/$1/g;
-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__\s/ /g;
-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__$//g;
-		$line =~ s/^#include <linux\/compiler.h>//;
-		printf OUTFILE "%s", $line;
-	}
-	close OUTFILE;
-	close INFILE;
-	system $unifdef . " $tmpfile > $installdir/$file";
-	unlink $tmpfile;
-}
-exit 0;
\0

PATCH [2/3]: Remove perl from make headers_install.

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Remove perl from make headers_install by replacing a perl script (doinga simple regex search and replace) with a smaller and faster shell scriptimplementation.  The new shell script is a single for loop calling sed andpiping its output through unifdef to produce the target file.
Changes from previous version: Added help text and a check for the rightnumber of arguments.  Removed unused ARCH input from script and makefile(the makefile incorporates ARCH into INDIR, so the script doesn't care),fixed a whitespace mistake in the makefile pointed out by Sam Ravnborg,changed the shebang to #!/bin/sh and tested under bash and dash.

put_changelog_here
Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>---
 scripts/Makefile.headersinst |    6 ++-- scripts/headers_install.pl   |   46 --------------------------------- scripts/headers_install.sh   |   36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 39 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)
diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.sh linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.sh--- linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.sh	2009-01-02 22:35:17.000000000 -0600@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@+#!/bin/sh++if [ $# -lt 2 ]+then+	echo "Usage: headers_install.sh INDIR OUTDIR [FILES...]+	echo+	echo "Prepares kernel header files for use by user space, by removing"+	echo "all compiler.h definitions and #includes, and removing any"+	echo "#ifdef __KERNEL__ sections."+	echo+	echo "INDIR:  directory to read each kernel header FILE from."+	echo "OUTDIR: directory to write each userspace header FILE to."+	echo "FILES:  list of header files to operate on."++	exit 1+fi++# Grab arguments++INDIR="$1"+shift+OUTDIR="$1"+shift++# Iterate through files listed on command line++for i in "$@"+do+	sed -r \+		-e 's/([ \t(])(__user|__force|__iomem)[ \t]/\1/g' \+		-e 's/__attribute_const__([ \t]|$)/\1/g' \+		-e 's@^#include <linux/compiler.h>@@' "$INDIR/$i" |+	scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__ - > "$OUTDIR/$i"+done++exit 0diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/scripts/Makefile.headersinst linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/Makefile.headersinst--- linux-2.6.28/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/Makefile.headersinst	2009-01-02 22:36:42.000000000 -0600@@ -44,8 +44,8 @@ quiet_cmd_install = INSTALL $(printdir) ($(words $(all-files))\                             file$(if $(word 2, $(all-files)),s))       cmd_install = \-        $(PERL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(header-y); \-        $(PERL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(SRCARCH) $(objhdr-y); \+      $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(srctree)/$(obj) $(install) $(header-y); \+      $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(objtree)/$(obj) $(install) $(objhdr-y); \         touch $@  quiet_cmd_remove = REMOVE  $(unwanted)@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ 	@:  targets += $(install-file)-$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.pl $(input-files) FORCE+$(install-file): scripts/headers_install.sh $(input-files) FORCE 	$(if $(unwanted),$(call cmd,remove),) 	$(if $(wildcard $(dir $@)),,$(shell mkdir -p $(dir $@))) 	$(call if_changed,install)diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.pl linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.pl--- linux-2.6.28/scripts/headers_install.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/scripts/headers_install.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600@@ -1,46 +0,0 @@-#!/usr/bin/perl -w-#-# headers_install prepare the listed header files for use in-# user space and copy the files to their destination.-#-# Usage: headers_install.pl readdir installdir arch [files...]-# readdir:    dir to open files-# installdir: dir to install the files-# arch:       current architecture-#             arch is used to force a reinstallation when the arch-#             changes because kbuild then detect a command line change.-# files:      list of files to check-#-# Step in preparation for users space:-# 1) Drop all use of compiler.h definitions-# 2) Drop include of compiler.h-# 3) Drop all sections defined out by __KERNEL__ (using unifdef)--use strict;--my ($readdir, $installdir, $arch, @files) = @ARGV;--my $unifdef = "scripts/unifdef -U__KERNEL__";--foreach my $file (@files) {-	local *INFILE;-	local *OUTFILE;-	my $tmpfile = "$installdir/$file.tmp";-	open(INFILE, "<$readdir/$file")-		or die "$readdir/$file: $!\n";-	open(OUTFILE, ">$tmpfile") or die "$tmpfile: $!\n";-	while (my $line = <INFILE>) {-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__user\s/$1/g;-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__force\s/$1/g;-		$line =~ s/([\s(])__iomem\s/$1/g;-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__\s/ /g;-		$line =~ s/\s__attribute_const__$//g;-		$line =~ s/^#include <linux\/compiler.h>//;-		printf OUTFILE "%s", $line;-	}-	close OUTFILE;-	close INFILE;-	system $unifdef . " $tmpfile > $installdir/$file";-	unlink $tmpfile;-}-exit 0;\0ÿôèº{.nÇ+‰·Ÿ®‰­†+%ŠËÿ±éݶ\x17¥Šwÿº{.nÇ+‰·¥Š{±þG«éÿŠ{ayº\x1dʇڙë,j\a­¢f£¢·hšïêÿ‘êçz_è®\x03(­éšŽŠÝ¢j"ú\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿ¾\a«þG«éÿ¢¸?™¨è­Ú&£ø§~á¶iO•æ¬z·švØ^\x14\x04\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿÃ\fÿ¶ìÿ¢¸?–I¥

PATCH [3/3]: Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh.

This script generates kernel/cpu/capflags.c from include/asm/cpufeature.h.

Changes from last time: changed shebang to #!/bin/sh and tested under bash
and dash.

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile      |    4 +--
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl |   32 ----------------------------
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh |   28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 34 deletions(-)

diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile
--- linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2009-01-02 01:10:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -23,10 +23,10 @@
 obj-$(CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC) += perfctr-watchdog.o
 
 quiet_cmd_mkcapflags = MKCAP   $@
-      cmd_mkcapflags = $(PERL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.pl $< $@
+      cmd_mkcapflags = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.sh $< $@
 
 cpufeature = $(src)/../../include/asm/cpufeature.h
 
 targets += capflags.c
-$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.pl FORCE
+$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.sh FORCE
 	$(call if_changed,mkcapflags)
diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl
--- linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl
-#
-# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm-x86/cpufeature.h
-#
-
-($in, $out) = @ARGV;
-
-open(IN, "< $in\0")   or die "$0: cannot open: $in: $!\n";
-open(OUT, "> $out\0") or die "$0: cannot create: $out: $!\n";
-
-print OUT "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>\n\n";
-print OUT "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {\n";
-
-while (defined($line = <IN>)) {
-	if ($line =~ /^\s*\#\s*define\s+(X86_FEATURE_(\S+))\s+(.*)$/) {
-		$macro = $1;
-		$feature = $2;
-		$tail = $3;
-		if ($tail =~ /\/\*\s*\"([^"]*)\".*\*\//) {
-			$feature = $1;
-		}
-
-		if ($feature ne '') {
-			printf OUT "\t%-32s = \"%s\",\n",
-				"[$macro]", "\L$feature";
-		}
-	}
-}
-print OUT "};\n";
-
-close(IN);
-close(OUT);
diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh linux-2.6.28-
new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh
--- linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	2009-01-02 01:10:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm/cpufeature.h
+#
+
+IN=$1
+OUT=$2
+
+(
+	echo "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>"
+	echo ""
+	echo "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {"
+
+	# Iterate through any input lines starting with #define X86_FEATURE_
+	sed -n -e 's/\t/ /g' -e 's/^ *# *define *X86_FEATURE_//p' $IN |
+	while read i
+	do
+		# Name is everything up to the first whitespace
+		NAME="$(echo "$i" | sed 's/ .*//')"
+
+		# If the /* comment */ starts with a quote string, grab that.
+		VALUE="$(echo "$i" | sed -n 's@.*/\* *\("[^"]*"\).*\*/@\1@p')"
+		[ -z "$VALUE" ] && VALUE="\"$(echo "$NAME" | tr A-Z a-z)\""
+
+		[ "$VALUE" != '""' ] && echo "	[X86_FEATURE_$NAME] = $VALUE,"
+	done
+	echo "};"
+) > $OUT
\0

PATCH [3/3]: Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh.
This script generates kernel/cpu/capflags.c from include/asm/cpufeature.h.
Changes from last time: changed shebang to #!/bin/sh and tested under bashand dash.
Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>---
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile      |    4 +-- arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl |   32 ---------------------------- arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh |   28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 34 deletions(-)
diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile--- linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2009-01-02 01:10:00.000000000 -0600@@ -23,10 +23,10 @@ obj-$(CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC) += perfctr-watchdog.o  quiet_cmd_mkcapflags = MKCAP   $@-      cmd_mkcapflags = $(PERL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.pl $< $@+      cmd_mkcapflags = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.sh $< $@  cpufeature = $(src)/../../include/asm/cpufeature.h  targets += capflags.c-$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.pl FORCE+$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.sh FORCE 	$(call if_changed,mkcapflags)diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl--- linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	2008-12-24 17:26:37.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@-#!/usr/bin/perl-#-# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm-x86/cpufeature.h-#--($in, $out) = @ARGV;--open(IN, "< $in\0")   or die "$0: cannot open: $in: $!\n";-open(OUT, "> $out\0") or die "$0: cannot create: $out: $!\n";--print OUT "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>\n\n";-print OUT "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {\n";--while (defined($line = <IN>)) {-	if ($line =~ /^\s*\#\s*define\s+(X86_FEATURE_(\S+))\s+(.*)$/) {-		$macro = $1;-		$feature = $2;-		$tail = $3;-		if ($tail =~ /\/\*\s*\"([^"]*)\".*\*\//) {-			$feature = $1;-		}--		if ($feature ne '') {-			printf OUT "\t%-32s = \"%s\",\n",-				"[$macro]", "\L$feature";-		}-	}-}-print OUT "};\n";--close(IN);-close(OUT);diff -ruN linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh--- linux-2.6.28/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600+++ linux-2.6.28-new/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	2009-01-02 01:10:00.000000000 -0600@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@+#!/bin/sh+#+# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm/cpufeature.h+#++IN=$1+OUT=$2++(+	echo "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>"+	echo ""+	echo "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {"++	# Iterate through any input lines starting with #define X86_FEATURE_+	sed -n -e 's/\t/ /g' -e 's/^ *# *define *X86_FEATURE_//p' $IN |+	while read i+	do+		# Name is everything up to the first whitespace+		NAME="$(echo "$i" | sed 's/ .*//')"++		# If the /* comment */ starts with a quote string, grab that.+		VALUE="$(echo "$i" | sed -n 's@.*/\* *\("[^"]*"\).*\*/@\1@p')"+		[ -z "$VALUE" ] && VALUE="\"$(echo "$NAME" | tr A-Z a-z)\""++		[ "$VALUE" != '""' ] && echo "	[X86_FEATURE_$NAME] = $VALUE,"+	done+	echo "};"+) > $OUT\0ÿôèº{.nÇ+‰·Ÿ®‰­†+%ŠËÿ±éݶ\x17¥Šwÿº{.nÇ+‰·¥Š{±þG«éÿŠ{ayº\x1dʇڙë,j\a­¢f£¢·hšïêÿ‘êçz_è®\x03(­éšŽŠÝ¢j"ú\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿ¾\a«þG«éÿ¢¸?™¨è­Ú&£ø§~á¶iO•æ¬z·švØ^\x14\x04\x1a¶^[m§ÿÿÃ\fÿ¶ìÿ¢¸?–I¥

[PATCH 1/3] Replace use of perl in 2.6.30 build

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Replace kernel/timeconst.pl with kernel/timeconst.sh.  The new shell script
is much simpler, about 1/4 the size, and runs on Red Hat 9 from 2003.

It requires a shell which can do 64 bit math, such as bash, busybox ash,
or dash.

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

Changes from previous version (http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/1/3/218):

Cosmetic tweak to millisecond/microsecond loop to pipe a here document into
"while read".  (Previous version had a for loop parsing arguments with spaces
via "cut", which prompted much bikeshedding.)

 kernel/Makefile     |    4 
 kernel/timeconst.pl |  378 ------------------------------------------
 kernel/timeconst.sh |  148 ++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 150 insertions(+), 380 deletions(-)

diff -ruN linux-2.6.30/kernel/Makefile linux-2.6.30.new/kernel/Makefile
--- linux-2.6.30/kernel/Makefile	2009-06-09 22:05:27.000000000 -0500
+++ linux-2.6.30.new/kernel/Makefile	2009-06-22 14:29:16.000000000 -0500
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@
 $(obj)/time.o: $(obj)/timeconst.h
 
 quiet_cmd_timeconst  = TIMEC   $@
-      cmd_timeconst  = $(PERL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) > $@
+      cmd_timeconst  = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $< $(CONFIG_HZ) $@
 targets += timeconst.h
-$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.pl FORCE
+$(obj)/timeconst.h: $(src)/timeconst.sh FORCE
 	$(call if_changed,timeconst)
diff -ruN linux-2.6.30/kernel/timeconst.pl linux-2.6.30.new/kernel/timeconst.pl
--- linux-2.6.30/kernel/timeconst.pl	2009-06-09 22:05:27.000000000 -0500
+++ linux-2.6.30.new/kernel/timeconst.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -1,378 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl
-# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#
-#   Copyright 2007-2008 rPath, Inc. - All Rights Reserved
-#
-#   This file is part of the Linux kernel, and is made available under
-#   the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 or (at your
-#   option) any later version; incorporated herein by reference.
-#
-# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-#
-
-#
-# Usage: timeconst.pl HZ > timeconst.h
-#
-
-# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt
-# Generated by:
-# timeconst.pl --can 24 32 48 64 100 122 128 200 250 256 300 512 1000 1024 1200
-%canned_values = (
-	24 => [
-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x2aaaaaa',26,
-		125,3,
-		'0xc49ba5e4','0x1fbe76c8b4',37,
-		3,125,
-		'0xa2c2aaab','0xaaaa',16,
-		125000,3,
-		'0xc9539b89','0x7fffbce4217d',47,
-		3,125000,
-	], 32 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x6000000',27,
-		125,4,
-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645a',36,
-		4,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x0',17,
-		31250,1,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x3fff79c842fa',46,
-		1,31250,
-	], 48 => [
-		'0xa6aaaaab','0x6aaaaaa',27,
-		125,6,
-		'0xc49ba5e4','0xfdf3b645a',36,
-		6,125,
-		'0xa2c2aaab','0x15555',17,
-		62500,3,
-		'0xc9539b89','0x3fffbce4217d',46,
-		3,62500,
-	], 64 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0xe000000',28,
-		125,8,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22d',35,
-		8,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x0',18,
-		15625,1,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842fa',45,
-		1,15625,
-	], 100 => [
-		'0xa0000000','0x0',28,
-		10,1,
-		'0xcccccccd','0x733333333',35,
-		1,10,
-		'0x9c400000','0x0',18,
-		10000,1,
-		'0xd1b71759','0x1fff2e48e8a7',45,
-		1,10000,
-	], 122 => [
-		'0x8325c53f','0xfbcda3a',28,
-		500,61,
-		'0xf9db22d1','0x7fbe76c8b',35,
-		61,500,
-		'0x8012e2a0','0x3ef36',18,
-		500000,61,
-		'0xffda4053','0x1ffffbce4217',45,
-		61,500000,
-	], 128 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x1e000000',29,
-		125,16,
-		'0x83126e98','0x3f7ced916',34,
-		16,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x40000',19,
-		15625,2,
-		'0x8637bd06','0xfffbce4217d',44,
-		2,15625,
-	], 200 => [
-		'0xa0000000','0x0',29,
-		5,1,
-		'0xcccccccd','0x333333333',34,
-		1,5,
-		'0x9c400000','0x0',19,
-		5000,1,
-		'0xd1b71759','0xfff2e48e8a7',44,
-		1,5000,
-	], 250 => [
-		'0x80000000','0x0',29,
-		4,1,
-		'0x80000000','0x180000000',33,
-		1,4,
-		'0xfa000000','0x0',20,
-		4000,1,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ff7ced9168',43,
-		1,4000,
-	], 256 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x3e000000',30,
-		125,32,
-		'0x83126e98','0x1fbe76c8b',33,
-		32,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0xc0000',20,
-		15625,4,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x7ffde7210be',43,
-		4,15625,
-	], 300 => [
-		'0xd5555556','0x2aaaaaaa',30,
-		10,3,
-		'0x9999999a','0x1cccccccc',33,
-		3,10,
-		'0xd0555556','0xaaaaa',20,
-		10000,3,
-		'0x9d495183','0x7ffcb923a29',43,
-		3,10000,
-	], 512 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0x7e000000',31,
-		125,64,
-		'0x83126e98','0xfdf3b645',32,
-		64,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x1c0000',21,
-		15625,8,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x3ffef39085f',42,
-		8,15625,
-	], 1000 => [
-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,
-		1,1,
-		'0x80000000','0x0',31,
-		1,1,
-		'0xfa000000','0x0',22,
-		1000,1,
-		'0x83126e98','0x1ff7ced9168',41,
-		1,1000,
-	], 1024 => [
-		'0xfa000000','0xfe000000',32,
-		125,128,
-		'0x83126e98','0x7ef9db22',31,
-		128,125,
-		'0xf4240000','0x3c0000',22,
-		15625,16,
-		'0x8637bd06','0x1fff79c842f',41,
-		16,15625,
-	], 1200 => [
-		'0xd5555556','0xd5555555',32,
-		5,6,
-		'0x9999999a','0x66666666',31,
-		6,5,
-		'0xd0555556','0x2aaaaa',22,
-		2500,3,
-		'0x9d495183','0x1ffcb923a29',41,
-		3,2500,
-	]
-);
-
-$has_bigint = eval 'use Math::BigInt qw(bgcd); 1;';
-
-sub bint($)
-{
-	my($x) = @_;
-	return Math::BigInt->new($x);
-}
-
-#
-# Constants for division by reciprocal multiplication.
-# (bits, numerator, denominator)
-#
-sub fmul($$$)
-{
-	my ($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	return scalar (($n << $b)+$d-bint(1))/$d;
-}
-
-sub fadj($$$)
-{
-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	$d = $d/bgcd($n, $d);
-	return scalar (($d-bint(1)) << $b)/$d;
-}
-
-sub fmuls($$$) {
-	my($b,$n,$d) = @_;
-	my($s,$m);
-	my($thres) = bint(1) << ($b-1);
-
-	$n = bint($n);
-	$d = bint($d);
-
-	for ($s = 0; 1; $s++) {
-		$m = fmul($s,$n,$d);
-		return $s if ($m >= $thres);
-	}
-	return 0;
-}
-
-# Generate a hex value if the result fits in 64 bits;
-# otherwise skip.
-sub bignum_hex($) {
-	my($x) = @_;
-	my $s = $x->as_hex();
-
-	return (length($s) > 18) ? undef : $s;
-}
-
-# Provides mul, adj, and shr factors for a specific
-# (bit, time, hz) combination
-sub muladj($$$) {
-	my($b, $t, $hz) = @_;
-	my $s = fmuls($b, $t, $hz);
-	my $m = fmul($s, $t, $hz);
-	my $a = fadj($s, $t, $hz);
-	return (bignum_hex($m), bignum_hex($a), $s);
-}
-
-# Provides numerator, denominator values
-sub numden($$) {
-	my($n, $d) = @_;
-	my $g = bgcd($n, $d);
-	return ($n/$g, $d/$g);
-}
-
-# All values for a specific (time, hz) combo
-sub conversions($$) {
-	my ($t, $hz) = @_;
-	my @val = ();
-
-	# HZ_TO_xx
-	push(@val, muladj(32, $t, $hz));
-	push(@val, numden($t, $hz));
-
-	# xx_TO_HZ
-	push(@val, muladj(32, $hz, $t));
-	push(@val, numden($hz, $t));
-
-	return @val;
-}
-
-sub compute_values($) {
-	my($hz) = @_;
-	my @val = ();
-	my $s, $m, $a, $g;
-
-	if (!$has_bigint) {
-		die "$0: HZ == $hz not canned and ".
-		    "Math::BigInt not available\n";
-	}
-
-	# MSEC conversions
-	push(@val, conversions(1000, $hz));
-
-	# USEC conversions
-	push(@val, conversions(1000000, $hz));
-
-	return @val;
-}
-
-sub outputval($$)
-{
-	my($name, $val) = @_;
-	my $csuf;
-
-	if (defined($val)) {
-	    if ($name !~ /SHR/) {
-		$val = "U64_C($val)";
-	    }
-	    printf "#define %-23s %s\n", $name.$csuf, $val.$csuf;
-	}
-}
-
-sub output($@)
-{
-	my($hz, @val) = @_;
-	my $pfx, $bit, $suf, $s, $m, $a;
-
-	print "/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.pl */\n";
-	print "/* Conversion constants for HZ == $hz */\n";
-	print "\n";
-	print "#ifndef KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";
-	print "#define KERNEL_TIMECONST_H\n";
-	print "\n";
-
-	print "#include <linux/param.h>\n";
-	print "#include <linux/types.h>\n";
-
-	print "\n";
-	print "#if HZ != $hz\n";
-	print "#error \"kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!\"\n";
-	print "#endif\n";
-	print "\n";
-
-	foreach $pfx ('HZ_TO_MSEC','MSEC_TO_HZ',
-		      'HZ_TO_USEC','USEC_TO_HZ') {
-		foreach $bit (32) {
-			foreach $suf ('MUL', 'ADJ', 'SHR') {
-				outputval("${pfx}_$suf$bit", shift(@val));
-			}
-		}
-		foreach $suf ('NUM', 'DEN') {
-			outputval("${pfx}_$suf", shift(@val));
-		}
-	}
-
-	print "\n";
-	print "#endif /* KERNEL_TIMECONST_H */\n";
-}
-
-# Pretty-print Perl values
-sub perlvals(@) {
-	my $v;
-	my @l = ();
-
-	foreach $v (@_) {
-		if (!defined($v)) {
-			push(@l, 'undef');
-		} elsif ($v =~ /^0x/) {
-			push(@l, "\'".$v."\'");
-		} else {
-			push(@l, $v.'');
-		}
-	}
-	return join(',', @l);
-}
-
-($hz) = @ARGV;
-
-# Use this to generate the %canned_values structure
-if ($hz eq '--can') {
-	shift(@ARGV);
-	@hzlist = sort {$a <=> $b} (@ARGV);
-
-	print "# Precomputed values for systems without Math::BigInt\n";
-	print "# Generated by:\n";
-	print "# timeconst.pl --can ", join(' ', @hzlist), "\n";
-	print "\%canned_values = (\n";
-	my $pf = "\t";
-	foreach $hz (@hzlist) {
-		my @values = compute_values($hz);
-		print "$pf$hz => [\n";
-		while (scalar(@values)) {
-			my $bit;
-			foreach $bit (32) {
-				my $m = shift(@values);
-				my $a = shift(@values);
-				my $s = shift(@values);
-				print "\t\t", perlvals($m,$a,$s), ",\n";
-			}
-			my $n = shift(@values);
-			my $d = shift(@values);
-			print "\t\t", perlvals($n,$d), ",\n";
-		}
-		print "\t]";
-		$pf = ', ';
-	}
-	print "\n);\n";
-} else {
-	$hz += 0;			# Force to number
-	if ($hz < 1) {
-		die "Usage: $0 HZ\n";
-	}
-
-	@val = @{$canned_values{$hz}};
-	if (!defined(@val)) {
-		@val = compute_values($hz);
-	}
-	output($hz, @val);
-}
-exit 0;
diff -ruN linux-2.6.30/kernel/timeconst.sh linux-2.6.30.new/kernel/timeconst.sh
--- linux-2.6.30/kernel/timeconst.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.30.new/kernel/timeconst.sh	2009-06-22 14:29:16.000000000 -0500
@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+if [ $# -ne 2 ]
+then
+	echo "Usage: timeconst.sh HZ FILENAME"
+	echo
+	echo "Generate a header file with constants for coverting between"
+	echo "decimal HZ timer ticks and milisecond or microsecond delays."
+	echo
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+HZ=$1
+shift
+FILENAME=$1
+
+# Sanity test: even the shell in Red Hat 9 (circa 2003) supported 64 bit math.
+
+if [ $((1 << 32)) -lt 0 ]
+then
+	echo "timeconst.sh needs a shell with 64 bit math, such as bash,"
+	echo "busybox ash, or dash running on a 64 bit host."
+	exit 1
+fi
+
+# If this script exits for any reason before this trap is removed,
+# delete the output file so a partial file won't confuse the build.
+
+trap "rm $FILENAME" EXIT
+
+# Output start of header file
+
+cat > $FILENAME << EOF || exit 1
+/* Automatically generated by kernel/timeconst.sh */
+/* Conversion constants for HZ == $HZ */
+
+#ifndef __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
+#define __KERNEL_TIMECONST_H
+
+#include <linux/param.h>
+#include <linux/types.h>
+
+#if HZ != $HZ
+#error "kernel/timeconst.h has the wrong HZ value!"
+#endif
+
+EOF
+
+# For both Milliseconds and Microseconds
+
+cat << EOF |
+MSEC 1000
+USEC 1000000
+EOF
+while read NAME PERIOD
+do
+	# Find greatest common denominator (using Euclid's algorithm)
+
+	A=$HZ
+	B=$PERIOD
+
+	while [ $B -ne 0 ]
+	do
+		C=$(( $A % $B ))
+		A=$B
+		B=$C
+	done
+
+	GCD=$A
+
+	# Do this for each direction (HZ_TO_PERIOD and PERIOD_TO_HZ)
+
+	for DIRECTION in 0 1
+	do
+		if [ $DIRECTION -eq 0 ]
+		then
+			CONVERT="HZ_TO_${NAME}"
+			FROM=$HZ
+			TO=$PERIOD
+		else
+			CONVERT="${NAME}_TO_HZ"
+			FROM=$PERIOD
+			TO=$HZ
+		fi
+
+		# Calculate 32 significant bits of MUL32 data.
+
+		SHIFT=0
+		while true
+		do
+			# This can't overflow 64 bit math.  Pathological case
+			# (TO=1, FROM=1000000) uses around 32+20=52 bits.
+
+			MUL32=$(( ( ( $TO << $SHIFT ) + $FROM - 1 ) / $FROM ))
+
+			# Keep increasing $SHIFT until we've got 32 bits.
+
+			[ $MUL32 -gt $(( 1 << 31 )) ] && break
+			SHIFT=$(( $SHIFT + 1 ))
+		done
+		MUL32=$( printf %x $MUL32 )
+
+		# ADJ32 is just (((FROM/GCD)-1)<<SHIFT)/(FROM/GCD) but this
+		# can overflow 64 bit math (examples, HZ=24 or HZ=122).
+		# Pathological case could use 32+20+20=72 bits.  (And this is
+		# the pathological case because a larger $HZ results in a
+		# smaller $SHIFT, so even insane HZ>USEC cases should be ok.)
+
+		# To get around this, we chop the bottom 32 bits off the
+		# calculation and then reassemble it to avoid overflow:
+		# 32+64=96, which is > 72.
+
+		ADJ32=$(( $FROM / $GCD ))
+		if [ $SHIFT -gt 32 ]
+		then
+			UPPER=$(( ( $ADJ32 - 1 ) << ( $SHIFT - 32 ) ))
+			LOWER=$(( ( $UPPER % $ADJ32 ) << 32 ))
+			ADJ32=$(( ( ( $UPPER / $ADJ32 ) << 32 ) + ( $LOWER / $ADJ32 )))
+		else
+			ADJ32=$(( ( ( $ADJ32 - 1 ) << $SHIFT) / $ADJ32 ))
+		fi
+		ADJ32=$( printf %x $ADJ32 )
+
+		NUM=$(( $TO / $GCD ))
+		DEN=$(( $FROM / $GCD ))
+
+		# Output next chunk of header data to file
+
+		(
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_MUL32	U64_C(0x$MUL32)" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_ADJ32	U64_C(0x$ADJ32)" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_SHR32	$SHIFT" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_NUM		U64_C($NUM)" &&
+			echo "#define ${CONVERT}_DEN		U64_C($DEN)"
+		) >> $FILENAME || exit 1
+	done
+done
+
+(
+	echo
+	echo "#endif /* __KERNEL_TIMECHONST_H */"
+) >> $FILENAME || exit 1
+
+# Don't rm $FILENAME on exit anymore.
+
+trap "" EXIT
+
+exit 0
-- 
Latency is more important than throughput. It's that simple. - Linus Torvalds

Re: [PATCH 3/3] Convert mkcapflags.pl to mkcapflags.sh

[Rob Landley]

From: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>

Convert kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl to kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh.

This script generates kernel/cpu/capflags.c from include/asm/cpufeature.h.

Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
---

Changes from previous version (http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/1/2/24):

None, just a rediff for 2.6.30.

 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile      |    4 +--
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl |   32 ----------------------------
 arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh |   28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 30 insertions(+), 34 deletions(-)

diff -ruN linux-2.6.30.old/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile linux-2.6.30/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile
--- linux-2.6.30.old/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2009-06-09 22:05:27.000000000 -0500
+++ linux-2.6.30/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/Makefile	2009-06-22 16:39:06.000000000 -0500
@@ -30,10 +30,10 @@
 obj-$(CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC) += perfctr-watchdog.o
 
 quiet_cmd_mkcapflags = MKCAP   $@
-      cmd_mkcapflags = $(PERL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.pl $< $@
+      cmd_mkcapflags = $(CONFIG_SHELL) $(srctree)/$(src)/mkcapflags.sh $< $@
 
 cpufeature = $(src)/../../include/asm/cpufeature.h
 
 targets += capflags.c
-$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.pl FORCE
+$(obj)/capflags.c: $(cpufeature) $(src)/mkcapflags.sh FORCE
 	$(call if_changed,mkcapflags)
diff -ruN linux-2.6.30.old/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl linux-2.6.30/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl
--- linux-2.6.30.old/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	2009-06-09 22:05:27.000000000 -0500
+++ linux-2.6.30/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.pl	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
@@ -1,32 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/perl
-#
-# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm-x86/cpufeature.h
-#
-
-($in, $out) = @ARGV;
-
-open(IN, "< $in\0")   or die "$0: cannot open: $in: $!\n";
-open(OUT, "> $out\0") or die "$0: cannot create: $out: $!\n";
-
-print OUT "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>\n\n";
-print OUT "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {\n";
-
-while (defined($line = <IN>)) {
-	if ($line =~ /^\s*\#\s*define\s+(X86_FEATURE_(\S+))\s+(.*)$/) {
-		$macro = $1;
-		$feature = $2;
-		$tail = $3;
-		if ($tail =~ /\/\*\s*\"([^"]*)\".*\*\//) {
-			$feature = $1;
-		}
-
-		if ($feature ne '') {
-			printf OUT "\t%-32s = \"%s\",\n",
-				"[$macro]", "\L$feature";
-		}
-	}
-}
-print OUT "};\n";
-
-close(IN);
-close(OUT);
diff -ruN linux-2.6.30.old/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh linux-2.6.30/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh
--- linux-2.6.30.old/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	1969-12-31 18:00:00.000000000 -0600
+++ linux-2.6.30/arch/x86/kernel/cpu/mkcapflags.sh	2009-06-22 16:39:06.000000000 -0500
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+#
+# Generate the x86_cap_flags[] array from include/asm/cpufeature.h
+#
+
+IN=$1
+OUT=$2
+
+(
+	echo "#include <asm/cpufeature.h>"
+	echo ""
+	echo "const char * const x86_cap_flags[NCAPINTS*32] = {"
+
+	# Iterate through any input lines starting with #define X86_FEATURE_
+	sed -n -e 's/\t/ /g' -e 's/^ *# *define *X86_FEATURE_//p' $IN |
+	while read i
+	do
+		# Name is everything up to the first whitespace
+		NAME="$(echo "$i" | sed 's/ .*//')"
+
+		# If the /* comment */ starts with a quote string, grab that.
+		VALUE="$(echo "$i" | sed -n 's@.*/\* *\("[^"]*"\).*\*/@\1@p')"
+		[ -z "$VALUE" ] && VALUE="\"$(echo "$NAME" | tr A-Z a-z)\""
+
+		[ "$VALUE" != '""' ] && echo "	[X86_FEATURE_$NAME] = $VALUE,"
+	done
+	echo "};"
+) > $OUT

-- 
Latency is more important than throughput. It's that simple. - Linus Torvalds