Re: [PATCH v3 4/4] tracing: move tracing declarations from kernel.h to a dedicated header

[Yury Norov <yury.norov@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2025 at 09:24:55PM -0800, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> [adding Kees]
> 
> On 12/16/25 4:13 PM, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > On Fri,  5 Dec 2025 12:52:35 -0500 "Yury Norov (NVIDIA)" <yury.norov@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> Tracing is a half of the kernel.h in terms of LOCs, although it's
> >> a self-consistent part. It is intended for quick debugging purposes
> >> and isn't used by the normal tracing utilities.
> >>
> >> Move it to a separate header. If someone needs to just throw a
> >> trace_printk() in their driver, they will not have to pull all
> >> the heavy tracing machinery.
> >>
> >> This is a pure move, except for removing a few 'extern's.
> >>
> 
> Hm, for a pure move, this shouldn't be necessary. Anyway, not using
> FORTIFY in purgatory.o fixes this build error.
> Or maybe there's a better answer.
> 
> ---
>  arch/x86/purgatory/Makefile |    2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> --- a/arch/x86/purgatory/Makefile
> +++ b/arch/x86/purgatory/Makefile
> @@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ PURGATORY_CFLAGS_REMOVE		+= $(CC_FLAGS_C
>  endif
>  
>  CFLAGS_REMOVE_purgatory.o	+= $(PURGATORY_CFLAGS_REMOVE)
> -CFLAGS_purgatory.o		+= $(PURGATORY_CFLAGS)
> +CFLAGS_purgatory.o		+= $(PURGATORY_CFLAGS) -D__NO_FORTIFY
>  
>  CFLAGS_REMOVE_sha256.o		+= $(PURGATORY_CFLAGS_REMOVE)
>  CFLAGS_sha256.o			+= $(PURGATORY_CFLAGS)

That happened because the new trace_printk.h includes string.h for
strlen(), so all kernel.h users now indirectly include it, and it
causes, seemingly, a circular dependency if FORTIFY is enabled.

A fix would be dropping trace_printk.h from kernel.h, or switching the
only user of string.h, trace_puts(), to __builtin_strlen().

Notice, Andy has concerned about this on the previous round, and also
suggested __builtin_strlen():

        https://lkml.org/lkml/2025/12/3/910

I deem to drop trace_printk.h from kernel.h - it is more aligned with
the idea of unloading the header. The original motivation to keep
trace_printk.h in kernel.h was just because a similar printk.h is living
there. But after all, this is a purely debugging header, so no need for
almost every C file to bear debugging stuff.

I can actually do both - switch to an intrinsic and drop the header.

Guys, please let me know what do you thing.

Thanks,
Yury