Re: [PATCH v8 4/4] fs: unicode: Add utf8 module and a unicode layer

From: Christoph Hellwig
Date: Tue Apr 27 2021 - 02:30:02 EST


On Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 02:21:36AM +0530, Shreeya Patel wrote:
> utf8data.h_shipped has a large database table which is an auto-generated
> decodification trie for the unicode normalization functions.
> We can avoid carrying this large table in the kernel unless it is required
> by the filesystem during boot process.
>
> Hence, make UTF-8 encoding loadable by converting it into a module and
> also add built-in UTF-8 support option for compiling it into the
> kernel whenever required by the filesystem.

The way this is implemement looks rather awkward.

Given that the large memory usage is for a data table and not for code,
why not treat is as a firmware blob and load it using request_firmware?