Re: [PATCH 3/8] arch/x86: Remove sentinel elem from ctl_table arrays

Ingo Molnar
2023-09-06T21:58:59Z

* Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@intel.com> wrote:

> On 9/6/23 03:03, Joel Granados via B4 Relay wrote:
> > This commit comes at the tail end of a greater effort to remove the
> > empty elements at the end of the ctl_table arrays (sentinels) which
> > will reduce the overall build time size of the kernel and run time
> > memory bloat by ~64 bytes per sentinel (further information Link :
> > https://lore.kernel.org/all/ZO5Yx5JFogGi%2FcBo@bombadil.infradead.org/)
> >
> > Remove sentinel element from sld_sysctl and itmt_kern_table.
>
> There's a *LOT* of content to read for a reviewer to figure out what's
> going on here between all the links. I would have appreciated one more
> sentence here, maybe:
>
> This is now safe because the sysctl registration code
> (register_sysctl()) implicitly uses ARRAY_SIZE() in addition
> to checking for a sentinel.
>
> That needs to be more prominent _somewhere_. Maybe here, or maybe in
> the cover letter, but _somewhere_.
>
> That said, feel free to add this to the two x86 patches:
>
> Acked-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com> # for x86

Absolutely needs to be in the title as well, something like:

arch/x86: Remove now superfluous sentinel elem from ctl_table arrays

With that propagated into the whole series:

Reviewed-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>

Thanks,

Ingo