Re: [patch 2/2] Linux Kernel Markers - Create modpost file

[Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>]

On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 01:18:47PM -0500, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> This adds some new magic in the MODPOST phase for CONFIG_MARKERS.
> Analogous to the Module.symvers file, the build will now write a
> Module.markers file when CONFIG_MARKERS=y is set.  This file lists
> the name, defining module, and format string of each marker,
> separated by \t characters.  This simple text file can be used by
> offline build procedures for instrumentation code, analogous to
> how System.map and Module.symvers can be useful to have for
> kernels other than the one you are running right now.
> 
> The strings are made easy to extract by having the __trace_mark macro
> define the name and format together in a single array called __mstrtab_*
> in the __markers_strings section.  This is straightforward and reliable
> as long as the marker structs are always defined by this macro.  It is
> an unreasonable amount of hairy work to extract the string pointers from
> the __markers section structs, which entails handling a relocation type
> for every machine under the sun.

Generating something like this might make sense.  But until you actually
add ome example code, e.g. to generate a tracing module for each probe
marker in a given module I don't see any point in adding this.