Re: [RFC PATCH 1/3] export symbol report: overview

[Ram Pai <linuxram@us.ibm.com>]

On Fri, 2006-04-21 at 09:43 +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 03:36:53PM -0700, Ram Pai wrote:
> > This patch series enables on-demand report generation of export symbol usage by
> > inkernel modules. The report is available at
> > 
> > A report generated by executing 
> >  	make allmodconfig
> >  	make export_report
> > is available at http://www.sudhaa.com/~ram/misc/export_report.txt
> > 
> > This report lists:
> > 1. the usage count of all exported symbols by in-kernel modules.
> > 2. For each in-kernel module lists
> > 	a) the in-kernel modules it depend on.
> > 	b) list of exported symbols from that in-kernel modules it depend on.
> > 
> > Highlights: 
> > 	On x86 architecture
> >  	(1) 880 exported symbols not used by any in-kernel modules.
> >         (2) 1792 exported symbols used only once.
> > 
> > This patch series has comments by Adrian Bunk incorporated.
> 
> Hi Ram Pai.
> 
> In principle what your patch does is a simple port-processign of
> Module.symvers.
> Insead of introducing another step in the buildprocess then for this
> functionality we should just call your script direct.
> This is not something the average users will do often, so having to
> type:
> ./scripts/export-report.pl
> 
> And then let the perl script pick up default values for where to find
> *.mod.c files and Module.symvers.
> 
> Thoughts?

Well, if the Module.symvers file does not exist than the script will
fail; unless the script invokes the 'make modules'. 

Incorporating it into the Makefile can ease its use,
because we can transparently trigger rules that can make the
Module.symvers file.

I guess its a question of which way makes it easy to use? and my 
thoughts are leaning towards incorporating it into the Makefile.

I can make it either way. You suggest.
RP

> 
> 	Sam