linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH net-next v2 0/9] net: Remove unused function parameters in skbuff.c

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Message-ID: <20250701165208.2e3443a0@kernel.org>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2025 16:52:08 -0700
From: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>
To: Paolo Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>
Cc: Michal Luczaj <mhal@...x.co>, "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
 Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>, Simon Horman <horms@...nel.org>, Neal
 Cardwell <ncardwell@...gle.com>, Kuniyuki Iwashima <kuniyu@...gle.com>,
 David Ahern <dsahern@...nel.org>, Boris Pismenny <borisp@...dia.com>, John
 Fastabend <john.fastabend@...il.com>, Ayush Sawal
 <ayush.sawal@...lsio.com>, Andrew Lunn <andrew+netdev@...n.ch>, Wenjia
 Zhang <wenjia@...ux.ibm.com>, Jan Karcher <jaka@...ux.ibm.com>, "D. Wythe"
 <alibuda@...ux.alibaba.com>, Tony Lu <tonylu@...ux.alibaba.com>, Wen Gu
 <guwen@...ux.alibaba.com>, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-rdma@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-s390@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next v2 0/9] net: Remove unused function parameters
 in skbuff.c

On Tue, 1 Jul 2025 11:02:50 +0200 Paolo Abeni wrote:
> >> I feel a little ambivalent about the removal of the flags arguments.
> >> I understand that they are unused now, but theoretically the operation
> >> as a whole has flags so it's not crazy to pass them along.. Dunno.  
> > 
> > I suspect you can say the same about @gfp. Even though they've both became
> > irrelevant for the functions that define them. But I understand your
> > hesitation. Should I post v3 without this/these changes?  
> 
> Yes please, I think it would make the series less controversial.
> 
> Also I feel like the gfp flag removal is less controversial, as is IMHO
> reasonable that skb_splice_from_iter() would not allocate any memory.

+1, FWIW, gfp flags are more as need be the callee.

> > What's netdev's stance on using __always_unused in such cases?

Subjectively, I find the unused argument warnings in the kernel
to usually be counter-productive. If a maintainer of a piece of code
wants to clean them up -- perfectly fine. But taking cleanup patches
and annotating with __always_unused doesn't see very productive.