Re: [PATCH] block_dump: don't put the last refcount when marking inode dirty

On Mon, Mar 01, 2021 at 12:21:02PM +0100, Jan Kara wrote:

Hrm, ok. Honestly, I wanted to just delete that code for a long time. IMO
tracepoints (and we have one in __mark_inode_dirty) are much more useful
for tracing anyway. This code exists only because it was there much before
tracepoints existed... Do you have a strong reason why are you using
block_dump instead of tracepoint trace_writeback_mark_inode_dirty() for
your monitoring?

Let me play devils advocate here, the downside of the writeback
tracepoints is that they only trace the inode number and not a file name
(component).  Which is also the reason they avoid this problem.

That being said block_dump is a horrible hack, and trace points are the
proper replacement.