On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 03:15:31PM +0200, Matteo Croce wrote: > In the sysctl code the proc_dointvec_minmax() function is often used to > validate the user supplied value between an allowed range. This function > uses the extra1 and extra2 members from struct ctl_table as minimum and > maximum allowed value. > > On sysctl handler declaration, in every source file there are some readonly > variables containing just an integer which address is assigned to the > extra1 and extra2 members, so the sysctl range is enforced. > > The special values 0, 1 and INT_MAX are very often used as range boundary, > leading duplication of variables like zero=0, one=1, int_max=INT_MAX in > different source files: > > $ git grep -E '\.extra[12].*&(zero|one|int_max)\b' |wc -l > 245 > > This patch adds three const variables for the most commonly used values, > and use them instead of creating a local one for every object file. Does this actually cause the kernel size to shrink? EXPORT_SYMBOL isn't free, you know.