linux-kernel - Re: Trailing periods in kernel messages

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Date:	Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:15:32 -0800
From:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	Frans Pop <elendil@...net.nl>
Cc:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Andy Whitcroft <apw@...dowen.org>,
	Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>, Li Zefan <lizf@...fujitsu.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, tglx@...utronix.de,
	trivial@...nel.org, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...otime.net>,
	Joel Schopp <jschopp@...tin.ibm.com>
Subject: Re: Trailing periods in kernel messages

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:43:33 +0100 Frans Pop <elendil@...net.nl> wrote:

> On Thursday 20 December 2007, Alan Cox wrote:
> > The kernel printk messages are sentences.
> 
> I'm afraid that I completely and utterly disagree. Kernel messages are _not_ 
> sentences. The vast majority is not well-formed and does not contain any of 
> the elements that are required for a proper sentence.
> 
> The most kernel messages can be compared to is a rather diverse and sloppy 
> enumeration. And enumerations follow completely different rules than 
> sentences. It can better be characterized as a "semi-random sequence of 
> context-sensitive technical messages".
> 
> IMHO the existing rule that "Kernel messages do not have to be terminated 
> with a period." is completely justified, though it does need some minor 
> clarification on the cases in which proper punctuation _should_ be 
> followed.

No-period is a kernel idiom, produces perfectly readable output, I have
never ever heard of anyone expressing the least concern over a lack of dots
at the end of their printks and 91% of kernel code agrees.

otoh the place where no-dots comes horridly unstuck is if a single printk
contains two sentences:

	printk("My computer caught on fire.  I hope yours does too\n");

that's really daft.  It's very rare though.


Of course one could always patch syslogd to add the dots, or change printk
and add an i_am_anal=1 kernel boot option.


Andy, please have an accident with that checkpatch change and let's hope
like hell that nobody starts trying to "fix" any of this.
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