Re: [PATCH] reduce syslog clutter (take 2)

[Tilman Schmidt <tilman@imap.cc>]

On 09.03.2006 17:34, Randy.Dunlap wrote:

> On Thu, 9 Mar 2006 03:02:57 -0800 Andrew Morton wrote:
> 
>>Tilman Schmidt <tilman@imap.cc> wrote:
>>
>>>The current versions of the err() / info() / warn() syslog macros
>>> insert __FILE__ at the beginning of the message, which expands to
>>> the complete path name of the source file within the kernel tree.
>>>
>>> With the following patch, when used in a module, they'll insert the
>>> module name instead, which is significantly shorter and also tends to
>>> be more useful to users trying to make sense of a particular message.
>>
>>Personally, I prefer to see filenames.  Or function names.  Sometimes it's
>>rather unobvious how to go from module name to filename, due to a) multiple
>>.o files being linked together, b) subsystems which insist on #including .c
>>files in .c files (usb...) and c) the module system's cute habit of
>>replacing underscores with dashes in module names.
> 
> True, just using module->name or whatever means that we would
> (often?) have to do a lookup to see what source file it was in.

That would be a valid point for debugging messages. However, we are
talking about messages to users here. I maintain that the additional 20
characters in:

Feb 21 00:12:13 gx110 kernel: drivers/isdn/gigaset/i4l.c:
ISDN_CMD_SETL3: invalid protocol 42

as opposed to:

Feb 21 00:12:13 gx110 kernel: gigaset: ISDN_CMD_SETL3: invalid protocol 42

do not provide any useful information for that clientele. They just push
the actual interesting information farther to the right, in this case
even causing a line wrap.

If I want to include the function name in the message I can (and indeed
I quite frequently do), but this only makes the clutter worse if the
macros force the source path on me regardless.

-- 
Tilman Schmidt                          E-Mail: tilman@imap.cc
Bonn, Germany
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