Re: [patch 2/2] Remove a few inlines in fs/namei.c

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:55:37 +0100 Al Viro <viro@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 05:52:31PM +0200, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> > Uninline may_create() and do_follow_link() and use vfs_follow_link()
> > instead of __vfs_follow_link() in __do_follow_link(). It allows to
> > slightly reduce the size of kernel code:
> > 
> >    text	   data	    bss	    dec	    hex	filename
> > 1114299	 118564	 212992	1445855	 160fdf	vmlinux.old
> > 1112971	 118564	 212992	1444527	 160aaf	vmlinux
> >   -1328       0       0   -1328    -530 +/-

That's a really big difference, considering whereabouts in the 
kernel this is.

> > This patch is part of the Linux Tiny project and has been originally
> > written by Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>
> 
> Absolutely not.  do_follow_link() et.al. are parts of mutual recursion
> loop and we need to reduce the use of kernel *stack*.

Last time someone tried to "fix" this I suggested that we add some
comments explaining the design - why it is the way it is.  And the
time before that.