Re: [PATCH 0/5] autoparam

[Domen Puncer <domen@coderock.org>]

On 21/03/05 00:06 +0100, Magnus Damm wrote:
> Here are a set of patches that makes it possible to autogenerate kernel command
> line documentation from the source code. The approach is rather straightforward
> - the parameter name, the type and the description are stored in a section 
> called __param_strings. After vmlinux is built this section is extracted using
> objcopy and a script is used to generate a primitive - but up to date - 
> document.

I think it's a great idea. A needed feature with simple implementation.
I like it.

> 
> Right now the section is left in the kernel binary. The document is currently
> not generated from the Makefile, so the curious user should perform:

Any plans to make this a complete patch?

> 
> $ objcopy -j __param_strings vmlinux -O binary foo
> $ chmod a+x scripts/section2text.rb
> $ cat foo | ./scripts/section2text.rb
> 
> And yeah, you need to install ruby to run the script.

Attached a perl script, that has almost the same output. (I think
perl is more usual on linux machines)

> 
> The ruby script section2text.rb does some checks to see if MODULE_PARM_DESC()
> is used without module_param(). You will find interesting typos.
> 
> Future work that extends this idea could include replacing __setup(name) with 
> __setup(name, descr). And storing the documentation somewhere to make it easy
> for the end user to look up the generated parameter list from the boot loader.

And kernel-parameters.txt will never again have obsoleted options :-)


	Domen

Attachment: section2text.pl
Description: Perl program