Re: [PATCH 09/13] cpufreq: acpi-cpufreq: Remove unused ID structs

From: Rafael J. Wysocki
Date: Wed Jul 15 2020 - 08:11:38 EST


On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 2:07 PM Lee Jones <lee.jones@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 15 Jul 2020, Lee Jones wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 15 Jul 2020, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> >
> > > On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 1:34 PM Lee Jones <lee.jones@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, 15 Jul 2020, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 5:27 AM Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On 15-07-20, 08:54, Viresh Kumar wrote:
> > > > > > > On 14-07-20, 22:03, Lee Jones wrote:
> > > > > > > > On Tue, 14 Jul 2020, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jul 14, 2020 at 4:51 PM Lee Jones <lee.jones@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > > Can't see them being used anywhere and the compiler doesn't complain
> > > > > > > > > > that they're missing, so ...
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Aren't they needed for automatic module loading in certain configurations?
> > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > Any idea how that works, or where the code is for that?
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > The MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE() thingy creates a map of vendor-id,
> > > > > > > product-id that the kernel keeps after boot (and so there is no static
> > > > > > > reference of it for the compiler), later when a device is hotplugged
> > > > > > > into the kernel it refers to the map to find the related driver for it
> > > > > > > and loads it if it isn't already loaded.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > This has some of it, search for MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE() in it.
> > > > > > > Documentation/driver-api/usb/hotplug.rst
> > > > > >
> > > > > > And you just need to add __maybe_unused to them to suppress the
> > > > > > warning.
> > > > >
> > > > > Wouldn't that cause the compiler to optimize them away if it doesn't
> > > > > see any users?
> > > >
> > > > It looks like they're only unused when !MODULE,
> > >
> > > OK
> > >
> > > > in which case optimising them away would be the correct thing to do, no?
> >
> > It would be good if someone with a little more knowledge could provide
> > a second opinion though. I would think (hope) that the compiler would
> > be smart enough to see when its actually in use. After all, it is the
> > compiler that places the information into the device table.
> >
> > If that is not the case, then the MODULE_DEVICE_TABLE() magic is
> > broken and will need fixing. Removing boiler-plate is good, but not
> > at the expense of obfuscation.
>
> Okay, I'm satisfied. This test build is without __maybe_unused:
>
> # All configs built as modules (MODULE) - the compiler knows to use the tables
>
> $ ccache make -f Makefile -j24 KBUILD_OUTPUT=../builds/build-x86 allmodconfig
> $ ccache make -f Makefile -j24 KBUILD_OUTPUT=../builds/build-x86 W=1 drivers/cpufreq/
> [...]
> CC [M] drivers/cpufreq/pcc-cpufreq.o
>
> # All configs built-in (!MODULE) - the compiler sees that they are unused
>
> $ ccache make -f Makefile -j24 KBUILD_OUTPUT=../builds/build-x86 allyesconfig
> $ ccache make -f Makefile -j24 KBUILD_OUTPUT=../builds/build-x86 W=1 drivers/cpufreq/
> CC drivers/cpufreq/pcc-cpufreq.o
> drivers/cpufreq/pcc-cpufreq.c:619:36: warning: âprocessor_device_idsâ defined but not used [-Wunused-const-variable=]
> 619 | static const struct acpi_device_id processor_device_ids[] = {
> | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>

OK

I thought that this would be the case. :-)