linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 04/14] ABI: better identificate tables

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Message-ID: <20190620120150.GH6241@localhost>
Date:   Thu, 20 Jun 2019 14:01:50 +0200
From:   Johan Hovold <johan@...nel.org>
To:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:     Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+samsung@...nel.org>,
        Johan Hovold <johan@...nel.org>,
        Linux Doc Mailing List <linux-doc@...r.kernel.org>,
        Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...pensource.com>,
        Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...radead.org>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Stefan Achatz <erazor_de@...rs.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 04/14] ABI: better identificate tables

On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 05:02:07PM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 10:56:33AM -0300, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> > Hi Johan,
> > 
> > Em Wed, 19 Jun 2019 14:51:35 +0200
> > Johan Hovold <johan@...nel.org> escreveu:
> > 
> > > On Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 11:04:10PM -0300, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> > > > From: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...pensource.com>
> > > > 
> > > > When parsing via script, it is important to know if the script
> > > > should consider a description as a literal block that should
> > > > be displayed as-is, or if the description can be considered
> > > > as a normal text.
> > > > 
> > > > Change descriptions to ensure that the preceding line of a table
> > > > ends with a colon. That makes easy to identify the need of a
> > > > literal block.  
> > > 
> > > In the cover letter you say that the first four patches of this series,
> > > including this one, "fix some ABI descriptions that are violating the
> > > syntax described at Documentation/ABI/README". This seems a bit harsh,
> > > given that it's you that is now *introducing* a new syntax requirement
> > > to assist your script.
> > 
> > Yeah, what's there at the cover letter doesn't apply to this specific
> > patch. The thing is that I wrote this series a lot of time ago (2016/17).

Got it, thanks.

[...]

> > In the specific case of this patch, the ":" there actually makes sense
> > for someone that it is reading it as a text file, and it is an easy
> > hack to make it parse better.

Human readers probably depend on more on tabulation and white space.
When the preceding description wasn't using a colon to begin with (and
you just replace s/\./:/) it can even look weird, but no big deal.

> > > Specifically, this new requirement isn't documented anywhere AFAICT, so
> > > how will anyone adding new ABI descriptions learn about it?
> > 
> > Yeah, either that or provide an alternative to "Description" tag, to be
> > used with more complex ABI descriptions.
> > 
> > One of the things that occurred to me, back on 2017, is that we should
> > have a way to to specify that an specific ABI description would have
> > a rich format. Something like:

[...]

> I don't know when "Description" and "RST-Description" would be used.
> Why not just parse "Description" like rst text and if things are "messy"
> we fix them up as found, like you did with the ":" here?  It doesn't
> have to be complex, we can always fix them up after-the-fact if new
> stuff gets added that doesn't quite parse properly.
> 
> Just like we do for most kernel-doc formatting :)

But kernel-doc has a documented format, which was sort of the point I
was trying to make. If the new get_abi.pl scripts expects a colon I
think it should be mentioned somewhere (e.g. Documentation/ABI/README).

Grepping for attribute entries in linux-next still reveals a number
descriptions that still lack that colon and use varying formatting. More
are bound to be added later, but perhaps that's ok depending on what
you're aiming at here.

Johan