Chris Down writes:
>>>3. `KERN_SOH + level' can appear in other places than just printk strings
>>>
>>>KERN_SOH is just ASCII '\001' -- it's not distinctive or unique, even when
>>>paired with a check for something that looks like a level after it. For this
>>>reason, your proposed patch results in a non-trivial amount of non-printk
>>>related garbage in its output. For example:
>>>
>>>     % binutils/strings -k /tmp/vmlinux | head -5
>>>     3L)s
>>>     3L)s
>>>     c,[]A\
>>>     c(L)c
>>>     d$pL)d$`u4
>>>
>>>Fundamentally, one cannot use a tool which just determines whether something is
>>>printable to determine semantic intent.
>>
>>$ kernel_strings --kernel --section ".rodata" vmlinux
>>
>>I got exactly 0.
>
>"It works on my computer" is not a valid testing methodology, 
>especially for something as complex as the Linux kernel. It's 
>especially not a valid rebuttal to someone demonstrating that it 
>clearly doesn't work on theirs.
>
>Even filtering to the .rodata section, there's plenty of garbage just 
>in the first five cases:
>
>    % binutils/strings --kernel --section ".rodata" /tmp/vmlinux | head -5
>    3******* Your BIOS seems to not contain a fix for K8 errata #93
>    1>pBC)
>    dTRAC
>    6Run %s as init process
>    7calling  %pS @ %i
>
>Clearly there are cases that you are not considering. My kernel config 
>is attached if you want to try and replicate, but regardless, it's 
>really not valid to say "it works for me" in response to someone 
>showing that it doesn't.

Attached.