linux-kernel - Re: [mingo@...e.hu: [git pull] headers

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Date:	Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:19:13 -0800 (PST)
From:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
cc:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Sam Ravnborg <sam@...nborg.org>,
	Jaswinder Singh Rajput <jaswinderrajput@...il.com>,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>
Subject: Re: [mingo@...e.hu: [git pull] headers_check fixes]



On Tue, 27 Jan 2009, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > 
> > Do you think the "fix headers_check" patches spend lots of time analyzing
> > things? I bet no. They just try to make the warning go away, so you don't
> > actually end up with any more "coverage" anyway. Quite the reverse - instead
> > of having a simple rule ("CONFIG_xyz options simply do not exist in user
> > space"), you end up having ad-hoc hacks on a per-fix basis.
> > 
> 
> This is probably true.  I think we should add this as one more of the
> preprocessing rules which we really should just do, as well as automatic
> mangling of integer types.

Btw, the really scary thing is that I bet there are programs out there 
that "know" about kernel internals, and do things like

	#define CONFIG_SMP 1
	#define __KERNEL__ 1
	#include <asm/atomic.h>

in order to get the atomic helpers from the kernel, and using CONFIG_xyz 
markers to force the exact version they want.

And we will inevitably always end up breaking stuff like that. Nothing we 
can do about it - in the end, users can do infinitely odd things and know 
about our internals, and whatever changes we do will occasionally break 
some of the more incestuous code.

			Linus
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