From: David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>
To: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Cc: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>,
linux-api@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org, linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org,
workflows@vger.kernel.org, tools@kernel.org, x86@kernel.org,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>,
"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org>,
Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>,
Cyril Hrubis <chrubis@suse.cz>, Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>,
Jake Edge <jake@lwn.net>, Askar Safin <safinaskar@zohomail.com>,
Gabriele Paoloni <gpaoloni@redhat.com>,
Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>,
Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>,
Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>,
Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>,
Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>,
Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/9] Kernel API Specification Framework
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2026 22:44:35 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260314224435.35465615@pumpkin> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260314111822.63a2ba4a@kernel.org>
On Sat, 14 Mar 2026 11:18:22 -0700
Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 11:09:10 -0400 Sasha Levin wrote:
> > This enables static analysis tools to verify userspace API usage at compile
> > time, test generation based on formal specifications, consistent error handling
> > validation, automated documentation generation, and formal verification of
> > kernel interfaces.
>
> Could you give some examples? We have machine readable descriptions for
> Netlink interfaces, we approached syzbot folks and they did not really
> seem to care for those.
The whole thing reminds me of doxygen comment blocks.
They tend to make it hard to read the source files, hard to search
the source files (due to all the extra matches) and are pretty much
always out of date.
The kerndoc comment blocks for trivial helper functions are hard enough
to keep up to date.
The only way even parameter descriptions are going to stay correct is if the
compiler is using the definition and only the comment part is extra.
For error returns you'll need the documentation to be at the return site.
David
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-03-14 22:44 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 37+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-03-13 15:09 [PATCH 0/9] Kernel API Specification Framework Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 1/9] kernel/api: introduce kernel API specification framework Sasha Levin
2026-03-17 17:49 ` Jonathan Corbet
2026-03-18 6:00 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2026-03-18 14:53 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-18 14:30 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-18 16:50 ` Jonathan Corbet
2026-03-18 14:32 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-18 16:51 ` Jonathan Corbet
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 2/9] kernel/api: enable kerneldoc-based API specifications Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 3/9] kernel/api: add debugfs interface for kernel " Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:32 ` Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-13 16:27 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 4/9] tools/kapi: Add kernel API specification extraction tool Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 5/9] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_open Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:33 ` Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-13 16:42 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-17 18:37 ` Jonathan Corbet
2026-03-18 14:12 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-18 14:16 ` Jonathan Corbet
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 6/9] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_close Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:49 ` Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-13 16:46 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:52 ` Greg Kroah-Hartman
2026-03-13 16:55 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 7/9] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_read Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 8/9] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_write Sasha Levin
2026-03-13 15:09 ` [PATCH 9/9] kernel/api: add runtime verification selftest Sasha Levin
2026-03-14 18:18 ` [PATCH 0/9] Kernel API Specification Framework Jakub Kicinski
2026-03-14 22:44 ` David Laight [this message]
2026-03-15 6:46 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-15 6:36 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-18 6:24 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2026-03-18 14:14 ` Sasha Levin
2026-03-16 7:05 ` Dmitry Vyukov
2026-03-16 22:57 ` Jakub Kicinski
2026-03-16 23:29 ` Sasha Levin
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