linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/5] Preliminary: Add error names & descrptions to printks

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Message-ID: <22288.1379502518@warthog.procyon.org.uk>
Date:	Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:08:38 +0100
From:	David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
To:	danielfsantos@....net
Cc:	dhowells@...hat.com, linux-kbuild <linux-kbuild@...r.kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Michal Marek <mmarek@...e.cz>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@...ux.vnet.ibm.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@...il.com>,
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
	George Spelvin <linux@...izon.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/5] Preliminary: Add error names & descrptions to printks

danielfsantos@....net wrote:

> Typically, we don't care about error messages or names in the kernel because
> userspace will manage that.  But sometimes we need to output an error number
> to printks and that creates a situation where a user, system admistrator or
> developer must find an error number reference to figure out what went wrong
> with a particular driver or whatever.  This patch adds two alternatives at
> increasing memory costs:
> 
> 1. print the number in addition to the name for 2k extra or
> 2. print the number, name and description for 6k extra.

I like the idea generally - and have occasionally entertained the idea of
implementing it myself.  However, I wouldn't bother with the "human readable"
description if we're going to do this.  Generally, the symbolic representation
is good enough - and that's what you're going to grep the code for anyway.

David
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