On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Al Viro <viro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but it might be possible to
> reduce the amount of boilerplate headers in arch/*/include/asm if we
> do the following:
> 1) move include/asm-generic to include/generic/asm and replace
> all references to asm-generic with generic/asm
> 2) add include/generic to search path for headers, right after
> arch/*/include
> 3) kill every arch/foo/include/asm/bar.h that has only
> #include <generic/asm/bar.h>
> in it.
I think we should do something like it, but not exactly that.
There is value in having <asm-generic/xyz.h> for *helper* headers that
are not complete in themselves. And for that case, we really do want
to have the ability for header files to just do
#include <asm-generic/bitops/le.h>
or similar. And that should *not* be done with some kind of magic
automatic search-path thing: that is very consciously about "I want
that *particular* generic fragment".
However, having it for the default case for those full header files is
just annoying - as you say, those idiotic one-liner <asm/bar.h> files
that just include the asm-generic one are annoying, and quite frankly,
the current work-around for them (that "generic-y" thing) is not
really any better. It's just another way to do the same broken thing.
So I would suggest we just start a new directory, something like
include/default, and add it as the last entry to the search path. Then
we start populating it with <asm/xyz.h> files, and start removing the
silly 'generic-y' workaround. Let's just use the search-path instead.
The problem with 'generic-y' is that it literally is impossible to add
a new asm header file without editing all architectures: you still
have to add it to the 'generic-y' list for everybody. So generic-y
doesn't really *help* anything or make it any easier.
Linus
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kbuild" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
