Re: [PATCH] Documentation: remove 'linux' from dontdiff file

[Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>]

On 04/13/2012 06:09 PM, richard -rw- weinberger wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 14, 2012 at 1:06 AM, H Hartley Sweeten
> <hartleys@visionengravers.com> wrote:
>> Hmm.. So we are suppressing an entire branch of the directory tree (a
>> fairly major one at that) for one file?
>>
> 
> No, we need a better solution.
> Your patch replaces a regression with another one...

Could somebody explain the purpose of this file to me?  According to
SubmittingPatches:

> To create a patch for multiple files, you should unpack a "vanilla",
> or unmodified kernel source tree, and generate a diff against your
> own source tree.  For example:
> 
>         MYSRC= /devel/linux-2.6
> 
>         tar xvfz linux-2.6.12.tar.gz
>         mv linux-2.6.12 linux-2.6.12-vanilla
>         diff -uprN -X linux-2.6.12-vanilla/Documentation/dontdiff \
>                 linux-2.6.12-vanilla $MYSRC > /tmp/patch
> 
> "dontdiff" is a list of files which are generated by the kernel during
> the build process, and should be ignored in any diff(1)-generated
> patch.  The "dontdiff" file is included in the kernel tree in
> 2.6.12 and later.  For earlier kernel versions, you can get it
> from <http://www.xenotime.net/linux/doc/dontdiff>.

Allowing a vmlinux equivalent in there would produce "binary files
differ", which is noise but not a regression. (The resulting patch
wouldn't functionally differ when applied.)

If it's really bothersome, possibly that hunk should have instructions
that you should compare against a _clean_ tree you've done "make
distclean" on?

Rob
-- 
GNU/Linux isn't: Linux=GPLv2, GNU=GPLv3+, they can't share code.
Either it's "mere aggregation", or a license violation.  Pick one.