Re: [PATCH] net: dsa: MxL862xx: don't force-enable MAXLINEAR_GPHY

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Mon, Feb 16, 2026, at 17:22, Daniel Golle wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 08:20:41AM -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
>> On 2/16/26 07:34, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>> > On Mon, Feb 16, 2026, at 16:17, Guenter Roeck wrote:
>> > > On 2/16/26 04:15, Daniel Golle wrote:
>> > > 
>> > > Technically, with "select MAXLINEAR_GPHY", NET_DSA_MXL862 should depend
>> > > on "depends on HWMON || HWMON=n". That would prevent NET_DSA_MXL862=y
>> > > and with it MAXLINEAR_GPHY=y.
>> > > 
>> > > Maybe it is time to implement dummy functions for hwmon API calls
>> > > to avoid all this.

I think I misread this bit earlier, sorry

>> > I had considered this when I found the build failure, but
>> > I think removing the 'select' here is much better: this
>> > simplifies the dependencies, and allows a valid configuration
>> > with hwmon and gphy support in a loadable module that would
>> > otherwise be impossible.
>> > 
>> 
>> Makes sense. I think I'll move forward with the dummy functions anyway
>> because with that the #ifdefs in drivers are no longer necessary
>> and the "depends on HWMON || HWMON=n" becomes optional.
>
> Yes, that would be great and eliminate that whole class of obstacles
> with some inline no-op stubs in the header.

What I meant above is that I had considered and rejected the extra
dependencies in the ethernet driver. I don't think there is a good
way to add inline helpers. Technically, one could use IS_REACHABLE()
here, to stub out the functions when the caller is built-in, but
I find that even worse because it replaces a trivial build-time
failure with very subtle runtime bug.

      Arnd