Re: Use of `gawk -M' in kernel build scripts

[Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>]

Hi Aharon,

On Sun, Oct 04, 2026 at 09:26:58PM +0300, Aharon Robbins wrote:
> I'm the maintainer for gawk. I see that it's used in the kernel build
> scripts in combination with objdump.

For the record, the only place where I see '-M' used with gawk is in
scripts/objdump-func, which is not called during the kernel build
thankfully.

> In particular, I note that gawk is invoked with the -M option, which
> uses MPFR for arithmetic (although the precision isn't changed beyond
> the default which is the same as for IEEE hardware floating point).
> 
> I am wondering if the -M option is really needed here?  The reason I
> ask is that I plan to deprecate MPFR support. The upcoming 6.0 release
> (I hope in Q2 2027) will issue a deprecation warning when -M is used,
> and 6.1 (late 2027 or early 2028, I hope) will have MPFR support removed
> entirely.
> 
> So, I wanted to give you folks a heads-up. If -M isn't needed, now's a good
> time to remove its use from the kernel build.

Adding Josh and Peter for the rest of this since they have
added/supported this script.

-- 
Cheers,
Nathan