On 4/9/05, Domen Puncer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 21/03/05 00:06 +0100, Magnus Damm wrote: > > Here are a set of patches that makes it possible to autogenerate kernel > > command > > line documentation from the source code. The approach is rather > > straightforward > > - the parameter name, the type and the description are stored in a section > > called __param_strings. After vmlinux is built this section is extracted > > using > > objcopy and a script is used to generate a primitive - but up to date - > > document. > > I think it's a great idea. A needed feature with simple implementation. > I like it.
Thanks! And together with the "disable built-in" patch we have a much more user-friendly system... > > Right now the section is left in the kernel binary. The document is > > currently > > not generated from the Makefile, so the curious user should perform: > > Any plans to make this a complete patch? Yes, if there is enough interest. I think autogenerating documents from source code is the right way to do it, but I am not sure about the disadvantages. Maybe someone could enlighten me? The latest patch does not support obsolete MODULE_PARM() parameters - so I need to add that to next release but that is no biggie. > > $ objcopy -j __param_strings vmlinux -O binary foo > > $ chmod a+x scripts/section2text.rb > > $ cat foo | ./scripts/section2text.rb > > > > And yeah, you need to install ruby to run the script. > > Attached a perl script, that has almost the same output. (I think > perl is more usual on linux machines) Great, thanks! I prefer to do prototype hacking in ruby, but I realize that "the magic duct tape language" is more suitable.. =) Also, I am thinking of using a prefix with the parameter type to determine the origin of the parameter, ie: prefix "s:" means from __setup() prefix "e:" means from early_param() prefix "m:" means from module_param() prefix "o:" means from obsolete MODULE_PARM() Then I would like to let the script convert the types to a common set of types. I thought about treating descriptions without parameters as errors, and generate warnings about parameters without description. And to reduce the amount of warnings I think it is a good idea to add a SETUP_DESC() as suggested by Matt Domsch. > > The ruby script section2text.rb does some checks to see if > > MODULE_PARM_DESC() > > is used without module_param(). You will find interesting typos. > > > > Future work that extends this idea could include replacing __setup(name) > > with > > __setup(name, descr). And storing the documentation somewhere to make it > > easy > > for the end user to look up the generated parameter list from the boot > > loader. > > And kernel-parameters.txt will never again have obsoleted options :-) Exactly! =) /magnus - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
