netdev - Re: [PATCH v2 00/25] kernel-doc: make it parse new functions and structs

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Message-ID: <09681668-57ca-4294-afa8-95af7eebe630@intel.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2026 14:08:50 -0800
From: Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@...el.com>
To: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+huawei@...nel.org>
CC: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>, "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Alexander Lobakin <aleksander.lobakin@...el.com>, Alexei Starovoitov
	<ast@...nel.org>, Daniel Borkmann <daniel@...earbox.net>, Jakub Kicinski
	<kuba@...nel.org>, Jesper Dangaard Brouer <hawk@...nel.org>, John Fastabend
	<john.fastabend@...il.com>, Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@...nel.org>,
	Richard Cochran <richardcochran@...il.com>, <bpf@...r.kernel.org>,
	<intel-wired-lan@...ts.osuosl.org>, <linux-doc@...r.kernel.org>,
	<linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <netdev@...r.kernel.org>, Randy Dunlap
	<rdunlap@...radead.org>, Shuah Khan <skhan@...uxfoundation.org>, "Stanislav
 Fomichev" <sdf@...ichev.me>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 00/25] kernel-doc: make it parse new functions and
 structs



On 1/28/2026 2:00 PM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 10:15:51 -0800
> Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@...el.com> wrote:
>> On 1/28/2026 9:27 AM, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
>>> Do we really need another unit-testing setup in the kernel?  I can't say
>>> I'm familiar enough with kunit to say whether it would work for
>>> non-kernel code; have you looked and verified that it isn't suitable?
>>>    
>>
>> I'm not sure kunit would be suitable here, since its meant for running
>> kernel code and does a lot of stuff to make that possible. It might be
>> able to be extended, but.. this is python code. Why *shouldn't* we use
>> one of the python unit test frameworks for it?
> 
> This is not using kunit. It is using standard "import unittest" from
> Python internal lib.
> 

Right. I think it makes perfect sense to use unittest for python files. 
That was the point of my reply above :D

>> We have other python code in tree. Does any of that code have unit tests?
> 
> Good question. On a quick grep, it sounds so:
> 
> 	$ git grep "import unittest" tools scripts
> 	scripts/rust_is_available_test.py:import unittest
> 	tools/crypto/ccp/test_dbc.py:import unittest
> 	tools/perf/pmu-events/metric_test.py:import unittest
> 	tools/testing/kunit/kunit_tool_test.py:import unittest
> 	tools/testing/selftests/bpf/test_bpftool.py:import unittest
> 	tools/testing/selftests/tpm2/tpm2.py:import unittest
> 	tools/testing/selftests/tpm2/tpm2_tests.py:import unittest
> 
>> I agree that it doesn't make sense to build new bespoke unit tests
>> different or unique per each python module, so if we want to adopt
>> python unit tests we should try to pick something that works for the
>> python tools in the kernel.
>>
>> Perhaps finding a way to integrate this with kunit so that you can use
>> "kunit run" and get python tests executed as well would make sense?
>> But.. then again this isn't kernel code so I'm not sure it makes sense
>> to conflate the tests with kernel unit tests.
> 
> It shouldn't be hard to add it there - or to have a separate script
> to run python unittests.
> 

Right. Some way to have all unit tests run is nice so that its easy to 
hook up into various CI processes. Sounds like you have a solid idea on 
that.

> That's said, some integration with kunit can be interesting
> to have it producing a KTAP output if needed by some CI.
> 
That could also be interesting, as it would make it easier for other 
tooling to work with all the tests.

Personally I am not sure how useful that would be vs just making use of 
the unittest stuff provided as-is with python.