From: "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@hallyn.com>
To: David Laight <david.laight.linux@gmail.com>
Cc: Gregory Price <gourry@gourry.net>,
Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>,
linux-api@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-doc@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org, linux-kselftest@vger.kernel.org,
workflows@vger.kernel.org, tools@kernel.org, x86@kernel.org,
Thomas Gleixner <tglx@kernel.org>,
"Paul E . McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org>,
Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>,
Cyril Hrubis <chrubis@suse.cz>, Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>,
Jake Edge <jake@lwn.net>, Gabriele Paoloni <gpaoloni@redhat.com>,
Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>,
Christian Brauner <brauner@kernel.org>,
Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>,
Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>,
Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>,
Shuah Khan <skhan@linuxfoundation.org>,
Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>,
Nathan Chancellor <nathan@kernel.org>,
Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>,
Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@kernel.org>,
Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5 05/11] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_open
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2026 11:16:46 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <asfB7tHWs420QkWL@hallyn.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20261008171205.7239c463@pumpkin>
On Thu, Oct 08, 2026 at 05:12:05PM +0100, David Laight wrote:
> On Thu, 8 Oct 2026 09:20:01 -0500
> "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@hallyn.com> wrote:
>
> ...
> >
> > Even if there's just a three line comment above a fn, history proves
> > that it will not reliably stay in sync as the fn changes. An automation
> > step/check is needed.
>
> The only way it can possibly stay in step is to have the compiler process
> the same source text.
> Then, if you add/change a function parameter you'd be pretty much forced
> to add/change the comment.
> Return values would have to be documented at the C return statement and
> really as an extra parameter to the return.
>
> But, IMHO, the whole thing adds too much bloat to the source files.
> When you 'grep' a source file, you don't really want another match in
> a big comment at the top of every function.
>
> David
That's why I feel all this info that Sasha has added should go into a
Documentation/uapi/ autogenerated directory. Auto-updated on every build,
with warnings if the result has changed.
-serge
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2026-10-08 16:16 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 20+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-10-08 8:49 [PATCH v5 00/11] Kernel API Specification Framework Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 01/11] kernel/api: introduce kernel API specification framework Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 02/11] kernel/api: enable kerneldoc-based API specifications Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 03/11] kernel/api: add debugfs interface for kernel " Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 04/11] tools/kapi: add kernel API specification extraction tool Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 05/11] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_open Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 12:49 ` Serge E. Hallyn
2026-10-08 13:13 ` Gregory Price
2026-10-08 14:20 ` Serge E. Hallyn
2026-10-08 14:37 ` Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 14:46 ` Serge E. Hallyn
2026-10-08 15:23 ` Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 16:12 ` David Laight
2026-10-08 16:16 ` Serge E. Hallyn [this message]
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 06/11] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_close Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 07/11] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_read Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 08/11] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_write Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 09/11] kernel/api: add runtime verification selftest Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 10/11] kernel/api: add API specification for sys_madvise Sasha Levin
2026-10-08 8:49 ` [PATCH v5 11/11] kernel/api: add syscall enter/exit tracepoints Sasha Levin
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