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perf tools: Add tools/include/uapi/README
Write down the reason why we keep a copy of headers to the README file instead of adding it to every commit messages. Suggested-by: Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@linux.intel.com> Original-by: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo <acme@kernel.org> Original-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org> Signed-off-by: Namhyung Kim <namhyung@kernel.org>
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Why we want a copy of kernel headers in tools? | ||
============================================== | ||
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There used to be no copies, with tools/ code using kernel headers | ||
directly. From time to time tools/perf/ broke due to legitimate kernel | ||
hacking. At some point Linus complained about such direct usage. Then we | ||
adopted the current model. | ||
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The way these headers are used in perf are not restricted to just | ||
including them to compile something. | ||
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There are sometimes used in scripts that convert defines into string | ||
tables, etc, so some change may break one of these scripts, or new MSRs | ||
may use some different #define pattern, etc. | ||
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E.g.: | ||
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$ ls -1 tools/perf/trace/beauty/*.sh | head -5 | ||
tools/perf/trace/beauty/arch_errno_names.sh | ||
tools/perf/trace/beauty/drm_ioctl.sh | ||
tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh | ||
tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsconfig.sh | ||
tools/perf/trace/beauty/fsmount.sh | ||
$ | ||
$ tools/perf/trace/beauty/fadvise.sh | ||
static const char *fadvise_advices[] = { | ||
[0] = "NORMAL", | ||
[1] = "RANDOM", | ||
[2] = "SEQUENTIAL", | ||
[3] = "WILLNEED", | ||
[4] = "DONTNEED", | ||
[5] = "NOREUSE", | ||
}; | ||
$ | ||
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The tools/perf/check-headers.sh script, part of the tools/ build | ||
process, points out changes in the original files. | ||
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So its important not to touch the copies in tools/ when doing changes in | ||
the original kernel headers, that will be done later, when | ||
check-headers.sh inform about the change to the perf tools hackers. | ||
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Another explanation from Ingo Molnar: | ||
It's better than all the alternatives we tried so far: | ||
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- Symbolic links and direct #includes: this was the original approach but | ||
was pushed back on from the kernel side, when tooling modified the | ||
headers and broke them accidentally for kernel builds. | ||
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- Duplicate self-defined ABI headers like glibc: double the maintenance | ||
burden, double the chance for mistakes, plus there's no tech-driven | ||
notification mechanism to look at new kernel side changes. | ||
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What we are doing now is a third option: | ||
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- A software-enforced copy-on-write mechanism of kernel headers to | ||
tooling, driven by non-fatal warnings on the tooling side build when | ||
kernel headers get modified: | ||
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Warning: Kernel ABI header differences: | ||
diff -u tools/include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h include/uapi/drm/i915_drm.h | ||
diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/fs.h include/uapi/linux/fs.h | ||
diff -u tools/include/uapi/linux/kvm.h include/uapi/linux/kvm.h | ||
... | ||
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The tooling policy is to always pick up the kernel side headers as-is, | ||
and integate them into the tooling build. The warnings above serve as a | ||
notification to tooling maintainers that there's changes on the kernel | ||
side. | ||
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We've been using this for many years now, and it might seem hacky, but | ||
works surprisingly well. | ||
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