Re: [PATCH v5 1/3] Provide in-kernel headers to make extending kernel easier

[Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 09:34:49AM -0700, Olof Johansson wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 8:51 AM Joel Fernandes <joelaf@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Apr 10, 2019 at 11:07 AM Olof Johansson <olof@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > > > Wouldn't it be more convenient to provide it in a standardized format
> > > > > such that you won't have to take an additional step, and always have
> > > > > This is that form IMO.
...
> Compared to:
>  - Extract tarball
>  - Build and load
>  - Remove file tree from filesystem

I think there are too many assumptions in this thread in regard to what
is more convenient for user space.
I think bcc should try to avoid extracting tarball into file system.
For example libbcc can uncompress kheader.tar.xz into virtual file system
of clang front-end. It's more or less std::map<string, string>
with key=path, value=content of the file. Access to such in-memory
'files' is obviously faster than doing open/read syscalls.
bcc already uses this approach for some bcc internal 'files' that
it passes to clang during compilation.
All of /proc/kheaders.tar.xz files can be passed the same way
without extracting them into real file system.

Joel, would be great if you can share corresponding bcc patch
that takes advantage of /proc/kheaders