[PATCH v2 1/1] tick/nohz: avoid showing '(null)' if nohz_full= not set

From: Aaron Tomlin

Date: Mon Oct 06 2025 - 21:25:17 EST


In the context of CONFIG_NO_HZ_FULL=y, tick_nohz_full_mask (of type
cpumask_var_t) is initialised to 0. Memory is only allocated to the cpumask
data structure, in tick_nohz_full_setup(), when Linux kernel boot-time
parameter "nohz_full=" is correctly specified (see housekeeping_setup()).
If "nohz_full=" is not set and an attempt is made to read
/sys/devices/system/cpu/nohz_full, '(null)' can be displayed:

❯ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/nohz_full
(null)

This patch changes the output to print a newline (or 0x0A) instead of
'(null)', making it consistent with print_cpus_isolated() behaviour.

Fixes: 6570a9a1ce3a1 ("show nohz_full cpus in sysfs")
Signed-off-by: Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/base/cpu.c | 6 +++++-
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/base/cpu.c b/drivers/base/cpu.c
index fa0a2eef93ac..10924fb5103b 100644
--- a/drivers/base/cpu.c
+++ b/drivers/base/cpu.c
@@ -304,7 +304,11 @@ static DEVICE_ATTR(isolated, 0444, print_cpus_isolated, NULL);
static ssize_t print_cpus_nohz_full(struct device *dev,
struct device_attribute *attr, char *buf)
{
- return sysfs_emit(buf, "%*pbl\n", cpumask_pr_args(tick_nohz_full_mask));
+ if (!tick_nohz_full_mask)
+ return sysfs_emit(buf, "\n");
+ else
+ return sysfs_emit(buf, "%*pbl\n",
+ cpumask_pr_args(tick_nohz_full_mask));
}
static DEVICE_ATTR(nohz_full, 0444, print_cpus_nohz_full, NULL);
#endif
--
2.49.0