Re: [PATCH 2/2] printk: Remember the message level for multi-lineoutput

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Mon Apr 14 2008 - 06:27:00 EST



* Nick Andrew <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > i've applied this too for testing.
> >
> > but multi-line strings are a bit unclean i think: each message line
> > should have its separate printk.
>
> You'd think. But there are a lot of calls to printk() with multi-line
> format strings; developers clearly expect it to "just work" and that a
> message level set at the start will be retained across lines.

ok :-)

> > will your patch leave the behavior of multiple calls to printk alone?
> > I.e. if i do:
> >
> > printk(KERN_ALERT "Danger Will Robinson!\n");
> > printk("Alien Approaching!\n");
> >
> > then we'll still get a KERN_ALERT plus a default printk, right?
>
> Yes, quite. The state of whether we're inside a line is retained
> across calls to printk (from anywhere in the system) - this allows
> code like this to usually do what you expect:
>
> printk(KERN_ERR "Error:");
> for (i = 0; i < 16; ++i) {
> printk(" %02x", i);
> }
> printk("\n");
>
> But in your example the first printk call contains a \n at the end of
> the line and so upon entry to the second printk call the function
> knows a new line is beginning.

ok - i think your change is a good one.

btw., we could also start emitting debug warnings that the printk is not
conform. Something like:

"INFO: the previous printk was done without a KERN_ annotation"

?

Ingo

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