Re: [PATCH] kbuild: Do not run kernel-doc when building external modules

Nathan Chancellor
2026-02-04T07:39:08Z

Hi Masahiro,

Good to see you around.

On Wed, Feb 04, 2026 at 04:02:10PM +0900, Masahiro Yamada wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2026 at 12:15 AM Nicolas Schier <nsc@kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 30 Jan 2026 14:37:47 -0700, Nathan Chancellor wrote:
> > > After commit 778b8ebe5192 ("docs: Move the python libraries to
> > > tools/lib/python"), building an external module with any value of W=
> > > against the output of install-extmod-build fails with:
> > >
> > > $ make -C /usr/lib/modules/6.19.0-rc7-00108-g4d310797262f/build M=$PWD W=1
> > > make: Entering directory '/usr/lib/modules/6.19.0-rc7-00108-g4d310797262f/build'
> > > make[1]: Entering directory '...'
> > > CC [M] ...
> > > Traceback (most recent call last):
> > > File "/usr/lib/modules/6.19.0-rc7-00108-g4d310797262f/build/scripts/kernel-doc.py", line 339, in <module>
> > > main()
> > > ~~~~^^
> > > File "/usr/lib/modules/6.19.0-rc7-00108-g4d310797262f/build/scripts/kernel-doc.py", line 295, in main
> > > from kdoc.kdoc_files import KernelFiles # pylint: disable=C0415
> > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > > ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'kdoc'
> > >
> > > [...]
> >
> > Applied to kbuild/linux.git (kbuild-fixes-unstable), thanks!
>
>
> I believe this is a wrong direction to go.
>
> Since kernel-doc is a part of Kbuild,
> all dependent libraries should exist under scripts/.

Is this around the recent moves such as 778b8ebe5192? I guess Kbuild was
never consulted on that change and I missed eba6ffd126cd, despite being
CC'd, so that is on me.

I did wonder if it was worth it to package these files in a previous
change but Mauro seemed somewhat opposed to it (but maybe I
misinterpreted something):

https://lore.kernel.org/20260130063056.72fbe458@foz.lan/

Perhaps tools/docs could be moved to scripts/docs and tools/lib/python
could be moved to just lib/python to have everything live logically
outside of tools/ and make it easier to package?

Cheers,
Nathan