linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 1/4] platform/x86: intel_pmc

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Message-ID: <CAHp75VcF5jB6hnLVbMJJKRvuRN7=0BS+OS1nB-EeR8Y8nTVz3w@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Tue, 30 Oct 2018 20:33:06 +0200
From:   Andy Shevchenko <andy.shevchenko@...il.com>
To:     Srinivas Pandruvada <srinivas.pandruvada@...ux.intel.com>
Cc:     rajneesh.bhardwaj@...ux.intel.com,
        Platform Driver <platform-driver-x86@...r.kernel.org>,
        Darren Hart <dvhart@...radead.org>,
        Andy Shevchenko <andy@...radead.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Rajneesh Bhardwaj <rajneesh.bhardwaj@...el.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/4] platform/x86: intel_pmc_core: Show Latency
 Tolerance info

On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 8:03 PM Srinivas Pandruvada
<srinivas.pandruvada@...ux.intel.com> wrote:

> > > Index printing is required here (for LTR Show and LTR Ignore)
> > > because it
> > > paves an obvious and easy way for the users of this driver to know
> > > the
> > > IP number to be used for LTR ignore. This was specifically
> > > requested by
> > > some customer and Srinivas asked me to implement this so adding him
> > > for
> > > his inputs.
> >
> > So, why it should be in kernel? When user prints this, they usually
> > call `cat /.../file`, right?
> > Is it too hard to call `cat -n /.../file` instead? The benefit of
> > such
> > approach is that it's independent on the file we are printing.
> >
> > (Note, `grep -n <PATTERN> /.../file` does the same`)
> >
> > For more variants
> >
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8206370/add-numbers-to-the-beginning-of-every-line-in-a-file
> >
> We get copy/paste data from some serial terminals from systems which
> don't have traditional linux shell or busy box. Not sure if they can do
> cat "-n" option or have this command at all. So line number helps. They
> can't even store output as as file as this is RO file system.

Hmm... I'm not following this. If there is serial connection where at
least you may see things, how it's guaranteed that it will not print
more enough to rewrite the DTE's input buffer?
On the other hand if you copy the data to the other system which, I
bet, has `cat -n` available, not a problem either.

So, the use case here, AFAICS, if you have a debug log enabled and
it's spitted out like SysRq where you can see, but not able to copy
and it's guaranteed not to overflow on the screen / output device.

> But I am not as sticky on this.

Since it's a debugfs and not any ABI implied, I'm fine with it to
have, but I would like to understand the real use case of it (and this
definitely should be reflected in the commit message).

-- 
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko