Re: kgdb: core

[Randy Dunlap <randy.dunlap@oracle.com>]

On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 21:46:36 -0700 Andrew Morton wrote:

> > On Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:12:52 +0200 Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> wrote:
> > > So please
> > > 
> > > a) make this a kerneldoc comment and
> > > 
> > > b) remove the kerneldoc at the definition site(s).
> > > 
> > > (alternative: teach the kerneldoc system to go fishing in the various 
> > > arch directories to find the appropriate documentation, but I don't 
> > > know enough about kerneldoc to be able say anything about that).
> > 
> > well there's lkml feedback ping-pong effect here. It was pointed out in 
> > earlier kgdb review that it's an "error" to put kerneldoc into header 
> > files.

As Andrew has pointed out in various emails, it is convention to
put kernel-doc near definitions (implementations), not near
declarations (headers).  [Boy, I hope I didn't get those reversed.]
But it's just convention for the sake of consistency AFAIK.
kernel-doc will read header files if that's what we tell it to do.

> It is, normally.  Nobody thought about this case.
> 
> > I pointed out that it makes no sense to do otherwise but removed 
> > the kerneldoc annotation to resolve the "objection".
> 
> Duplicating the same stuff in multiple places is the larger sin.  It sounds
> like the best compromise would be to kernel-doc the interface in the .h
> file and remove the duplicated comments from .c.

Yes, duplication would be Bad.

> Or perhaps we kernel-doc the interface in the x86 .c files and leave it at
> that - people should go there to find the docs.  Problem is, this will

That's (using x86) fairly common also, esp. for functions that header
files (inline functions and macros).

> presumably generate bad results if one builds the formal kerneldoc output
> for a different architecture.  The kerneldoc system could of course fix
> this somehow, but I don't know what shape it would take nor how much work
> it would be.

kernel-doc output doesn't depend on build $ARCH.


---
~Randy