On Tue, May 18, 2021 at 03:00:44PM -0700, Jeff Johnson wrote: > On 2021-05-18 12:29, Jeff Johnson wrote: > > On 2021-05-18 09:33, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > > > There is no need to keep around the dentry pointers for the debugfs > > > files as they will all be automatically removed when the subdir is > > > removed. So save the space and logic involved in keeping them > > > around by > > > just getting rid of them entirely. > > > > > > By doing this change, we remove one of the last in-kernel user that > > > was > > > storing the result of debugfs_create_bool(), so that api can be > > > cleaned > > > up. > > > > Question not about this specific change, but the general concept > > of keeping (or not keeping) dentry pointers. In the ath drivers, > > as well as in an out-of-tree driver for Android, we keep a > > debugfs dentry pointer to use as a param to relay_open(). > > > > Will we still be able to have a dentry pointer for this purpose? > > Or better, is there a recommended way to get a dentry pointer > > NOT associated with debugfs at all (which would be ideal for > > Android where debugfs is disabled). > > Answering one of my questions: The dentry passed to relay_open() comes > from debugfs_create_dir() which is expected to return a dentry. > > Would still like guidance on if there is a recommended way to get a > dentry not associated with debugfs. What do you exactly mean by "not associated with debugfs"? And why are you passing a debugfs dentry to relay_open()? That feels really wrong and fragile. Ideally I want to get rid of the "raw" dentry that debugfs returns to callers, as it has caused odd problems in the past, but that's a very long-term project... thanks, greg k-h