Re: [PATCH v4 2/3] driver core: make software nodes available earlier

[Andy Shevchenko]

On Tue, Mar 31, 2026 at 12:45:59PM +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 31, 2026, at 10:55, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 11:52:34PM -0700, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> >> On March 30, 2026 11:25:33 PM PDT, Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> >On Mon, Mar 30, 2026 at 02:46:45PM -0700, Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> >> 
> >> The code section will be discarded when the kernel finishes booting so it
> >> only increases image size on disk. 
> >
> > Almost true. Interesting microblaze case, where it's not discarded.
> > But I can't find where it's actually used on any architecture.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that is just mistake
> 
> >> >A bit of archaeology:
> >> >
> >> >The first time it appeared was in the bcc2152647b8 ("Import 2.4.0-test3pre3").
> >> >Then somehow spread a bit (but not much).
> >> 
> >> And it shows how useful it is. Maybe it had some purpose a long time ago, but
> >> at present time this code will never be executed since it cannot be built as
> >> a module.
> >
> > Are you sure about definition of __exitcall? As I read init.h the macro
> > is defined when it's not a MODULE.
> 
> I also tried to trace this back now, and from what I found, both
> the __init_call and __exit_call annotations gained __attribute_used__
> back in lniux-2.6.0 as a way to prevent both gcc-3.3 and gcc-3.4
> from warning about unused functions or discarding initcalls that
> are actually required.
> 
> My best guess is that __exit_call should just use
> __attribute__((unused)) instead of __attribute__((used)) and
> have the compiler drop it from built-in code instead of the linker:

But why do we need that at all? Can we just drop the full section for good.
Or i.o.w. where exactly is it being used in the current kernel?

-- 
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko