Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause?

From: Nix (nix_at_esperi.org.uk)
Date: 12/13/03

  • Next message: Greg KH: "Re: PPP over ttyUSB (visor.o, Treo)" 
    To: viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk
Date:	Sat, 13 Dec 2003 00:11:58 +0000

    [catching up with vast backlog]

    On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk mused:
    > FWIW, it would be very nice if somebody did hard and messy work and
    > produced lists of in-tree modules using given symbols. Ideally - automated
    > that, but that won't be easy to do (quite a few are used only via inlined
    > wrappers and in some cases - under an ifdef; many arch-specific exports
    > are of that sort).

    ISTM that this could be done quite easily with a hacked-up libcpp that
    does token pasting and #include processing, but does *not* process #if
    statements themselves.

    Preprocess every translation unit in the kernel with that, and grep each
    of them for every exported symbol in turn, and bingo. :)

    I'll have a hack sometime this weekend if nobody else gets around to it.

    (Of course, this will say that stuff in #if 0's and other #ifdef
    branches that can't be reached is in fact used, but such code isn't
    common.)

    > Some approximation might be obtained by building all modules and
    > doing nm on them, with manual work for non-obvious cases.

    Hang on, surely you can tell which symbols in modules are exported just
    by looking for expansions of EXPORT_SYMBOL{_GPL}? Why is this bit hard?

    I think the problem is you're trying to compile rather than doing a
    hacked -E :) we don't need to compile for this, just do most of the
    preprocessing phase. 

    -- 
`...some suburbanite DSL customer who thinks kernel patches are some
 form of military insignia.' --- Bob Apthorpe
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  • Next message: Greg KH: "Re: PPP over ttyUSB (visor.o, Treo)"

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