From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1762741AbXFRM7w (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 08:59:52 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1756073AbXFRM7n (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 08:59:43 -0400 Received: from mtagate2.de.ibm.com ([195.212.29.151]:4668 "EHLO mtagate2.de.ibm.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755775AbXFRM7m (ORCPT ); Mon, 18 Jun 2007 08:59:42 -0400 Subject: Re: [RFC/PATCH] Documentation of kernel messages From: holzheu Reply-To: holzheu@linux.vnet.ibm.com To: Gerrit Huizenga Cc: Jan Kara , Andrew Morton , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, randy.dunlap@oracle.com, gregkh@suse.de, mtk-manpages@gmx.net, schwidefsky@de.ibm.com, heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com, "lf_kernel_messages@linux-foundation.org" In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain Organization: IBM Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:55:54 +0200 Message-Id: <1182171354.11400.40.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.0.2 (2.0.2-27.rhel4.6) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi Gerrit, The common thing of your and our approach is, that we need an ID to identify a message either by: * Using hashes + component name (maybe) * Or using hand-made message numbers + component name. Numbers have to be unique within the kernel component I think the main difference of your approach is, that documentation will be maintained outside the kernel. This has advantages, but also disadvantages: (+) Developers have less work to do :-) (+) Kernel sources and patches have less lines of code, since message descriptions are not contained in the kernel sources. (+) You can support multiple languages (-) Hard to keep printks and descriptions up-to-date. If using hashes, each typo fix in a printk breaks the link to your documentation. (-) Since the developer knows the meaning of a printk best, he probably would be the right person to write the description. (-) For every Distribution or vanilla kernel you probably need separate external message databases. I like the fact, that every printk gets an ID in your approach and you do not need additional printk macros. Maybe both approaches are not mutually exclusive. If developers would like to document their messages within the kernel sources, they still could use kernel-doc and our KMSG_DOC macro do do that. I admit, that I am not sure about the the best solution here. Michael