Re: [PATCH] checkpatch: remove obsolete check for __dev* section markers

[Dwaipayan Ray]

On Sat, Jul 17, 2021 at 10:02 PM Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 16, 2021 at 8:21 PM Dwaipayan Ray <dwaipayanray1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Commit 54b956b90360 ("Remove __dev* markings from init.h")
> > completely removed the definitions of __dev* section
> > markers from init.h. They can no longer pop up in the kernel
> > and hence the check for those markers is unneeded now.
> >
>
> Generally, a good idea! I like this commit of removing obsolete checks
> in checkpatch. Can you identify more checks in checkpatch that are
> potentially obsolete and share them with us?
>

I identified this one while writing the verbose documentations for that
rule. I will probably get some more in this process. I will share if I get
something else, given nobody has any objections.

> I assume:
> If you run checkpatch on the whole latest kernel tree and you run
> checkpatch on the last 50,000 commits or so, all checks that were
> never triggered on those evaluations are potentially obsolete. I
> assume that only a handful of checks would qualify for that criteria,
> and then we could dig deeper into the history of those checks and see
> if they still serve a potential purpose or can be removed.
>
> If you need a powerful server to run such checkpatch evaluations, just
> let me know.
>

I do have the checkpatch evaluation on the whole kernel that I did about
last month on a cloud server. I can use that. And I have the 50k commit
checkpatch report from v5.4. That should suffice for now. But thanks, I
will share if I require any computing power.

> Just on the wording of your commit message:
>
> The first sentence reads very strange, because you are just repeating
> the commit message. So, you can probably just combine the first two
> sentences and make it much shorter:
>
> Since commit ..., the check in checkpatch for __dev* markings is obsolete.
>
> Remove this obsolete check.
>

That sounds logical.
This particular check was added by Joe in 2013 when the process for
__dev* marker removal was in progress. If he has no objections to it,
I can send in an updated patch.

Thanks,
Dwaipayan.