The Linux Kernel Mailing List
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@crashcourse.ca>
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: processing the unused and "badref" CONFIG variables
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:55:00 -0500 (EST)	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0912280649520.19521@localhost> (raw)


  just to prod people into maybe perusing the output here:

http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Unused_CONFIG_variables

even if *most* of those definitions of unused CONFIG variables don't
do any harm, as i mentioned, sometimes that output clearly identifies
typoes that should be fixed.  in other cases, it identifies strange
situations like this:

===== RADIO_TEA5764_XTAL
drivers/media/radio/radio-tea5764.c:132:#ifndef RADIO_TEA5764_XTAL
drivers/media/radio/radio-tea5764.c:133:#define RADIO_TEA5764_XTAL 1
drivers/media/radio/radio-tea5764.c:137:static int use_xtal = RADIO_TEA5764_XTAL;
drivers/media/radio/Kconfig:412:config RADIO_TEA5764_XTAL

  in the above, what seems to be happening is that a Kconfig variable
is being defined and would lead the developer to think that it
represents something selectable, whereas the source file itself simply
hardcodes the equivalent value (or something like that).  that strikes
me as a recipe for confusion and potentially maddening debugging.

  also, over the course of today, i'll be updating the page of what i
call "badref" CONFIG variables -- variables that are being *tested*
but are not *defined* in any Kconfig file.  those have the potential
for more serious errors.  the current (unupdated) output for that is
here:

http://www.crashcourse.ca/wiki/index.php/Badref_CONFIG_variables

i'm betting a lot of that output isn't going to change even after
updating to the latest git tree.

rday
--



========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
========================================================================

                 reply	other threads:[~2009-12-28 11:55 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: [no followups] expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=alpine.LFD.2.00.0912280649520.19521@localhost \
    --to=rpjday@crashcourse.ca \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox