motivation behind pr_xxx macros

[greg@kroah.com (Greg KH)]

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 08:41:14PM +0530, Himanshu Aggarwal wrote:
> While writing some code on 2.6.32, I have come across some of these
> macros that in turn call printk:
> 
> pr_emerg
> pr_alert
> ...
> pr_debug
> 
> Is there any case when should these macros be preferred over explicit
> printk statements?

Yes, for almost all usages, use them instead of printk().

> What is the motivation behind providing these
> macros when this task can already be accomplished by using printk
> statements explicitly with priority levels?

It forces you to actually specify a level (which people sometimes
forget) and it ties you into the dynamic debugging logic (with the
pr_debug() call) and it provides a common prefix specifying your exact
module that is creating the output.

But even better, please use the dev_* functions instead, whereever you
have access to a struct device * as that uniquely identifies both your
module, and your device, in a standard way that userspace can
understand, and it ties into the dynamic debugging infrastructure as
well.

But for those few places where you don't have a struct device *, use the
pr_* functions instead please and not "raw" printk() calls.

Hope this helps,

greg k-h