Re: [RFC PATCH] seq_file: Use seq_puts when seq_printf has only a format with no args

[Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk>]

On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 10:51:18AM -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> > This is certainly a neat trick.
> > 
> > But I don't really like the fact that it complicates things for every
> > future code reader, especially when a trivial change in the caller
> > would accomplish the same thing.  Do you have any idea how much
> > performance we would gain in exchange for the complication?
> 
> Nope.  I believe it's trivial in any case.
> I just saw Steven's trace hack and thought of seq_printk.
> 
> Is there a real performance sensitive seq_printf anywhere?

... and _that_ is the question that should've been asked first.

> It's trivial to replace seq_printf("constant") with
> seq_puts but there are over a thousand of them.
> 
> It may be better to just leave everything as-is.

Quite.  Note that it's not equivalent to gcc treatment of printf/puts -
there we have cases when it *is* a real hotpath (and I seriously suspect
that it's in part driven by desire to discourage people from uglifying
source by manual equivalents of that micro-optimization).  Moreover,
glibc printf at least used to be heavy; kernel-side we are nowhere near
that bad.