Sasha Levin [off-list ref] writes:
On Tue, Mar 17, 2026 at 11:49:27AM -0600, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
quoted
So the reason for two completely separate mechanisms is not entirely
clear to me. The kerneldoc variant is essentially documentation, while
the macro stuff is to be built into the executable? What if you want
both?
It would be nice to only have one way if at all possible; I'm sure that
crossed your mind at some point :) If there have to be two, having both
examples describe the same function would make the parallels more clear.
Woops, I forgot to finish writing my reply to this :)
Under the hood, kerneldoc specs are translated into those macros so they could
be part of the build process and embedded into the resulting binary (both for
documentation as well as the runtime validation).
I don't think anyone would use the macro format directly, but as it's there
anyway I figured I'd offer it as an option. Would it make sense to just hide it
behind the scenes?
If there are two ways of doing it, people will use both ways. My
kneejerk reaction would be to hide the macros as an implementation
detail, but perhaps that's just me.
Thanks,
jon