On Fri, 21 Aug 2020 08:13:00 +0800 Nicolas Boichat <drinkcat@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 10:23 PM Steven Rostedt <rostedt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > On Thu, 20 Aug 2020 17:14:12 +0800 > > Nicolas Boichat <drinkcat@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > > Technically, we could only initialize the trace_printk buffers > > > when the print env is switched, to avoid the build error and > > > unconditional boot-time warning, but I assume this printing > > > framework will eventually get removed when the driver moves out > > > of staging? > > > > Perhaps this should be converting into a trace event. Look at what bpf > > did for their bpf_trace_printk(). > > > > The more I think about it, the less I like this series. > > To make it clear, the primary goal of this series is to get rid of > trace_printk sprinkled in the kernel by making sure some randconfig > builds fail. Since my v2, there already has been one more added (the > one that this patch removes), so I'd like to land 2/3 ASAP to prevent > even more from being added. > > Looking at your reply on 1/3, I think we are aligned on that goal? Is > there some other approach you'd recommend? > > Now, I'm not pretending my fixes are the best possible ones, but I > would much rather have the burden of converting to trace events on the > respective driver maintainers. (btw is there a short > documentation/tutorial that I could link to in these patches, to help > developers understand what is the recommended way now?) > I like the goal, but I guess I never articulated the problem I have with the methodology. trace_printk() is meant to be a debugging tool. Something that people can and do sprinkle all over the kernel to help them find a bug in areas that are called quite often (where printk() is way too slow). The last thing I want them to deal with is adding a trace_printk() with their distro's config (or a config from someone that triggered the bug) only to have the build to fail, because they also need to add a config value. I add to the Cc a few developers I know that use trace_printk() in this fashion. I'd like to hear their view on having to add a config option to make trace_printk work before they test a config that is sent to them. -- Steve
