Re: [PATCH] ext4: convert legacy ext4_debug() to standard pr_debug()

From: Jan Kara

Date: Mon May 25 2026 - 11:16:54 EST


On Thu 21-05-26 03:46:34, lirongqing wrote:
> From: Li RongQing <lirongqing@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> The ext4 file system historically implemented its own debug logging macro
> ext4_debug() via EXT4FS_DEBUG conditional compilation. This legacy
> implementation suffers from two major drawbacks:
>
> 1. It makes two consecutive un-serialized printk() calls, which can
> lead to severe log interleaving and corruption under multi-core
> concurrent workloads.
> 2. It completely bypasses the standard modern kernel dynamic debug
> (CONFIG_DYNAMIC_DEBUG) infrastructure.
>
> Clean up the legacy implementation by leveraging pr_debug(). This squashes
> the multiple printk() calls into a single atomic execution, ensuring
> log integrity, while seamlessly hooking ext4 into the kernel's native
> dynamic debug framework.
>
> The redundant __FILE__ and __LINE__ macros are intentionally removed from
> the string format because the dynamic debug infrastructure can already
> append them automatically at runtime (via the '+fl' flags) if desired.
> This avoids redundancy and double-logging in modern production/debugging
> environments while keeping the macro clean and robust against dangling
> comma compiler errors.
>
> Signed-off-by: Li RongQing <lirongqing@xxxxxxxxx>

Nice! Feel free to add:

Reviewed-by: Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxx>

Honza


> ---
> fs/ext4/ext4.h | 20 ++------------------
> 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/ext4/ext4.h b/fs/ext4/ext4.h
> index 94283a9..39e86ff 100644
> --- a/fs/ext4/ext4.h
> +++ b/fs/ext4/ext4.h
> @@ -62,24 +62,8 @@
> */
> #define DOUBLE_CHECK__
>
> -/*
> - * Define EXT4FS_DEBUG to produce debug messages
> - */
> -#undef EXT4FS_DEBUG
> -
> -/*
> - * Debug code
> - */
> -#ifdef EXT4FS_DEBUG
> -#define ext4_debug(f, a...) \
> - do { \
> - printk(KERN_DEBUG "EXT4-fs DEBUG (%s, %d): %s:", \
> - __FILE__, __LINE__, __func__); \
> - printk(KERN_DEBUG f, ## a); \
> - } while (0)
> -#else
> -#define ext4_debug(fmt, ...) no_printk(fmt, ##__VA_ARGS__)
> -#endif
> +#define ext4_debug(fmt, ...) \
> + pr_debug("EXT4-fs DEBUG %s: " fmt, __func__, ##__VA_ARGS__)
>
> /*
> * Turn on EXT_DEBUG to enable ext4_ext_show_path/leaf/move in extents.c
> --
> 2.9.4
>
--
Jan Kara <jack@xxxxxxxx>
SUSE Labs, CR