proposal: remove unused macros

proposal: remove unused macros

[Mariusz Kozlowski]

Hello,

	Recently someone send a patch that fixed some old '#ifdef'ed code with syntax 
error (stray brackets). The broken code was there for a long time and nobody 
saw that. I digged some more and wrote a simple program that counted '(' 
and ')' in the kernel code that emits apropriate text if for a given file 
both numbers differ. That is probably dumb idea but it worked :-) Quite fast 
I found a dozen of broken macros with syntax errors etc. All of those macros 
are unused. I digged a bit deeper and used '-Wunused-macros' flag which with 
causes 8340 new warnings to be emited for 2.6.19-rc5-mm1 with 'allmodconfig'. 
For sure there are false positives (see gcc man page) but even if i.e. 50% of 
them are fp then we still have around 4k of unused macros scattered around 
the tree.

To me this is a dead code. I can review the code causing these warnings and 
prepare patches 'per subsystem' or whatever to address this issue. That is if 
nobody opposes.
-- 
Regards,

	Mariusz Kozlowski

Re: proposal: remove unused macros

[Gene Heskett]

On Monday 13 November 2006 13:13, Mariusz Kozlowski wrote:
>Hello,
>
>	Recently someone send a patch that fixed some old '#ifdef'ed code with
> syntax error (stray brackets). The broken code was there for a long
> time and nobody saw that. I digged some more and wrote a simple program
> that counted '(' and ')' in the kernel code that emits apropriate text
> if for a given file both numbers differ. That is probably dumb idea but
> it worked :-) Quite fast I found a dozen of broken macros with syntax
> errors etc. All of those macros are unused. I digged a bit deeper and
> used '-Wunused-macros' flag which with causes 8340 new warnings to be
> emited for 2.6.19-rc5-mm1 with 'allmodconfig'. For sure there are false
> positives (see gcc man page) but even if i.e. 50% of them are fp then
> we still have around 4k of unused macros scattered around the tree.
>
>To me this is a dead code. I can review the code causing these warnings
> and prepare patches 'per subsystem' or whatever to address this issue.
> That is if nobody opposes.

With regard to your parens checking code, I re-wrote from a broken 
version, about 20 years ago, a utility to check all that.  I used it on 
the coco/os9 systems at the time, then built it for the amiga, and 
rebuilt it for linux a few years back.  It checks brackets, quotes in " 
style and ' style and ;, etc stuff.  I called mine cntx, and I've used it 
occasionally here, but haven't had the need/urge to test any kernel code 
with it so far.

If anyone is interested, and the list will take attachments of that 
nature, I'd be honored to share it.  What say you all?

-- 
Cheers, Gene

Re: proposal: remove unused macros

[Randy Dunlap]

On Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:19:17 -0500 Gene Heskett wrote:

> On Monday 13 November 2006 13:13, Mariusz Kozlowski wrote:
> >Hello,
> >
> >	Recently someone send a patch that fixed some old '#ifdef'ed code with
> > syntax error (stray brackets). The broken code was there for a long
> > time and nobody saw that. I digged some more and wrote a simple program
> > that counted '(' and ')' in the kernel code that emits apropriate text
> > if for a given file both numbers differ. That is probably dumb idea but
> > it worked :-) Quite fast I found a dozen of broken macros with syntax
> > errors etc. All of those macros are unused. I digged a bit deeper and
> > used '-Wunused-macros' flag which with causes 8340 new warnings to be
> > emited for 2.6.19-rc5-mm1 with 'allmodconfig'. For sure there are false
> > positives (see gcc man page) but even if i.e. 50% of them are fp then
> > we still have around 4k of unused macros scattered around the tree.
> >
> >To me this is a dead code. I can review the code causing these warnings
> > and prepare patches 'per subsystem' or whatever to address this issue.
> > That is if nobody opposes.
> 
> With regard to your parens checking code, I re-wrote from a broken 
> version, about 20 years ago, a utility to check all that.  I used it on 
> the coco/os9 systems at the time, then built it for the amiga, and 
> rebuilt it for linux a few years back.  It checks brackets, quotes in " 
> style and ' style and ;, etc stuff.  I called mine cntx, and I've used it 
> occasionally here, but haven't had the need/urge to test any kernel code 
> with it so far.
> 
> If anyone is interested, and the list will take attachments of that 
> nature, I'd be honored to share it.  What say you all?

I'm interested.

Thanks,
---
~Randy

Re: proposal: remove unused macros

[Horst H. von Brand]

Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@verizon.net> wrote:

[...]

> With regard to your parens checking code, I re-wrote from a broken 
> version, about 20 years ago, a utility to check all that.  I used it on 
> the coco/os9 systems at the time, then built it for the amiga, and 
> rebuilt it for linux a few years back.  It checks brackets, quotes in " 
> style and ' style and ;, etc stuff.  I called mine cntx, and I've used it 
> occasionally here, but haven't had the need/urge to test any kernel code 
> with it so far.
> 
> If anyone is interested, and the list will take attachments of that 
> nature, I'd be honored to share it.  What say you all?

I'd be interested. Licensing terms? GPLv2, BSD, ...?
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                    Fono: +56 32 2654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria             +56 32 2654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile               Fax:  +56 32 2797513

Re: proposal: remove unused macros

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 14 November 2006 06:18, Horst H. von Brand wrote:
>Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>> With regard to your parens checking code, I re-wrote from a broken
>> version, about 20 years ago, a utility to check all that.  I used it
>> on the coco/os9 systems at the time, then built it for the amiga, and
>> rebuilt it for linux a few years back.  It checks brackets, quotes in
>> " style and ' style and ;, etc stuff.  I called mine cntx, and I've
>> used it occasionally here, but haven't had the need/urge to test any
>> kernel code with it so far.
>>
>> If anyone is interested, and the list will take attachments of that
>> nature, I'd be honored to share it.  What say you all?
>
>I'd be interested. Licensing terms? GPLv2, BSD, ...?

Generally PD, I didn't change that.  I'll send a copy to your address.

-- 
Cheers, Gene

Re: proposal: remove unused macros

[Mariusz Kozlowski]

Hello, 

> >> If anyone is interested, and the list will take attachments of that
> >> nature, I'd be honored to share it.  What say you all?
> >
> >I'd be interested. Licensing terms? GPLv2, BSD, ...?
>
> Generally PD, I didn't change that.  I'll send a copy to your address.

Can you make it both with the code publicly available somewhere? My code was 
rather a 'proof of concept' and it is far from a real tool to share with 
people.

-- 
Regards,

	Mariusz Kozlowski