Re: [PATCH 1/2] netpoll: Remove unused EXPORT_SYMBOLs of netpoll_poll and netpoll_poll_dev

On Mon, 2011-07-04 at 14:53 +0800, Harry Wei wrote:

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 06:08:57PM -0700, Joe Perches wrote:

quoted

Unused symbols waste space.
Commit 0e34e93177fb
"(netpoll: add generic support for bridge and bonding devices)"
added the symbol more than a year ago with the promise of "future use".
Because it is so far unused, remove it for now.
It can be easily readded if or when it actually needs to be used.
cc: WANG Cong <redacted>
Signed-off-by: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
---
 include/linux/netpoll.h |    2 --
 net/core/netpoll.c      |    6 ++----
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/include/linux/netpoll.h b/include/linux/netpoll.h

[]

quoted

@@ -40,8 +40,6 @@ struct netpoll_info {
 	struct netpoll *netpoll;
 };
 
-void netpoll_poll_dev(struct net_device *dev);
-void netpoll_poll(struct netpoll *np);
 void netpoll_send_udp(struct netpoll *np, const char *msg, int len);
 void netpoll_print_options(struct netpoll *np);
 int netpoll_parse_options(struct netpoll *np, char *opt);

diff --git a/net/core/netpoll.c b/net/core/netpoll.c
index 18d9cbd..4ce595e 100644
--- a/net/core/netpoll.c
+++ b/net/core/netpoll.c

@@ -177,7 +177,7 @@ static void service_arp_queue(struct netpoll_info *npi)
 	}
 }
 
-void netpoll_poll_dev(struct net_device *dev)
+static void netpoll_poll_dev(struct net_device *dev)

You have removed the function declaration in include/linux/netpoll.h.

Because it's unused by anything in the tree
but netpoll.c

And you changed the function like 
static void netpoll_poll_dev(...)
{
	...
}
But i don't know its usage.

It's now a local function to netpoll.c

The 'static' before this function just says the active area of 'netpoll_poll_dev'
is in the file net/core/netpoll.c. What is the purpose? Could you please tell me?

It prods the device to perform network work.

	/* Process pending work on NIC */
	ops->ndo_poll_controller(dev);

	poll_napi(dev);