Re: [PATCH v4 0/2] kbuild: remove gcc's -Wtype-limits

Nicolas Schier
2026-01-05T16:48:30Z

On Thu, Jan 01, 2026 at 04:21:38PM +0100, Vincent Mailhol wrote:
> I often read on the mailing list people saying "who cares about W=2
> builds anyway?". At least I do. Not that I want to fix all of them,
> but on some occasions, such as new driver submissions, I have often
> found a couple valid diagnostics in the W=2 output.
>
> That said, the annoying thing is that W=2 is heavily polluted by one
> warning: -Wtype-limits. Try a gcc W=2 build on any file and see the
> results for yourself. I suspect this to be the reason why so few
> people are using W=2.
>
> This series removes gcc's -Wtype-limits in an attempt to make W=2 more
> useful. Those who do not use W=2 can continue to not use it if they
> want. Those who, like me, use it for time to time will get an improved
> experience from the reduced spam.
>
> Patch #1 deactivates -Wtype-limits. Extra details on statistics, past
> attempts and alternatives are given in the description.
>
> Patch #2 clean-ups the local Kbuild -Wno-type-limits exceptions.
>
> Signed-off-by: Vincent Mailhol <mailhol@kernel.org>
> ---
> Changes in v4:
>
> - Remove patch #3.
> - Aside from minor changes in the patch descriptions, this is
> basially a revert to v1.
>
> Link to v3: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20251220-remove_wtype-limits-v3-0-24b170af700e@kernel.org

just to prevent confusions: As Dan silenced the Smatch warning caused
by patch #3 [1] (thanks!), the additional comment patch [2] is obsolete
and v3 of the series is a more complete version than v4.

Kind regards,
Nicolas

[1]: https://github.com/error27/smatch/commit/a7b509b8171b4982b5a2a355f64d083dd76e03f9
[2]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-kbuild/b6b35138-2c37-4b82-894e-59e897ec7d58@kernel.org/