linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v1 00/26] x86: Introduce centralized CPUID model

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Message-ID: <aBnHCbo4OaWpM392@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 6 May 2025 10:23:37 +0200
From: Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>
To: "Ahmed S. Darwish" <darwi@...utronix.de>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@...en8.de>,
	Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@...rix.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	John Ogness <john.ogness@...utronix.de>, x86@...nel.org,
	x86-cpuid@...ts.linux.dev, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v1 00/26] x86: Introduce centralized CPUID model


* Ahmed S. Darwish <darwi@...utronix.de> wrote:

> Ahmed S. Darwish (26):
>   tools/x86/kcpuid: Update bitfields to x86-cpuid-db v2.4
>   x86/cpu: Sanitize CPUID(0x80000000) output
>   x86/cpuid: Introduce <asm/cpuid/leaves.h>
>   x86/cpuid: Introduce centralized CPUID data
>   x86/cpuid: Introduce CPUID scanner
>   x86/cpuid: Scan CPUID(0x80000000)
>   x86/cpuid: Introduce debugfs 'x86/scanned_cpuid/[0-ncpus]'
>   x86/cpuid: Introduce external CPUID table accessors
>   x86/cpu: Use scanned CPUID(0x0)
>   x86/cpu: Use scanned CPUID(0x80000001)
>   x86/lib: Add CPUID(0x1) CPU family and model calculation
>   x86/cpu: Use scanned CPUID(0x1)
>   x86/cpuid: Scan CPUID(0x2)
>   x86/cpuid: Introduce scanned CPUID(0x2) API
>   x86/cpu: Use scanned CPUID(0x2)
>   x86/cacheinfo: Use scanned CPUID(0x2)
>   x86/cpuid: Remove direct CPUID(0x2) query API
>   x86/cpuid: Scan deterministic cache params CPUID leaves
>   x86/cacheinfo: Use scanned CPUID(0x4)
>   x86/cacheinfo: Use scanned CPUID(0x8000001d)
>   x86/cpuid: Scan CPUID(0x80000005) and CPUID(0x80000006)
>   x86/cacheinfo: Use auto-generated data types
>   x86/cacheinfo: Use scanned CPUID(0x80000005) and CPUID(0x80000006)
>   x86/cpuid: scanner: Add CPUID table rescan support
>   x86/cpu: Rescan CPUID table after PSN disable
>   x86/cpu: Rescan CPUID table after unlocking the full CPUID range

Overall namespace suggestion: could you please use 'parse_' verbiage, 
instead of 'scan_'? Even if a lot of the scan_ uses in this series are 
a temporary back and forth that goes away after the conversion, but 
still, some of it remains.

Today 'scan' is not really used in this context, in the kernel at 
least, and I don't think it's a particularly good fit. 'Scanning' 
suggests searching for something or looking for something, which we 
don't really do: we parse the entire CPUID tree in essence, during 
bootstrap, and re-parse it when something changes about it on the 
hardware side. We don't really scan for anything in particular.

Does this make sense?

Thanks,

	Ingo