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-rw-r--r--Documentation/sparse.txt40
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 7 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/sparse.txt b/Documentation/sparse.txt
index 1a3bdc27d95..eceab1308a8 100644
--- a/Documentation/sparse.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sparse.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
Copyright 2004 Linus Torvalds
-Copyright 2004 Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
+Copyright 2004 Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
Copyright 2006 Bob Copeland <me@bobcopeland.com>
Using sparse for typechecking
@@ -42,16 +42,42 @@ sure that bitwise types don't get mixed up (little-endian vs big-endian
vs cpu-endian vs whatever), and there the constant "0" really _is_
special.
+__bitwise__ - to be used for relatively compact stuff (gfp_t, etc.) that
+is mostly warning-free and is supposed to stay that way. Warnings will
+be generated without __CHECK_ENDIAN__.
+
+__bitwise - noisy stuff; in particular, __le*/__be* are that. We really
+don't want to drown in noise unless we'd explicitly asked for it.
+
+Using sparse for lock checking
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The following macros are undefined for gcc and defined during a sparse
+run to use the "context" tracking feature of sparse, applied to
+locking. These annotations tell sparse when a lock is held, with
+regard to the annotated function's entry and exit.
+
+__must_hold - The specified lock is held on function entry and exit.
+
+__acquires - The specified lock is held on function exit, but not entry.
+
+__releases - The specified lock is held on function entry, but not exit.
+
+If the function enters and exits without the lock held, acquiring and
+releasing the lock inside the function in a balanced way, no
+annotation is needed. The tree annotations above are for cases where
+sparse would otherwise report a context imbalance.
+
Getting sparse
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can get latest released versions from the Sparse homepage at
-http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/josh/sparse/
+https://sparse.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
Alternatively, you can get snapshots of the latest development version
of sparse using git to clone..
- git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/josh/sparse.git
+ git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/devel/sparse/sparse.git
DaveJ has hourly generated tarballs of the git tree available at..
@@ -73,10 +99,10 @@ recompiled, or use "make C=2" to run sparse on the files whether they need to
be recompiled or not. The latter is a fast way to check the whole tree if you
have already built it.
-The optional make variable CHECKFLAGS can be used to pass arguments to sparse.
-The build system passes -Wbitwise to sparse automatically. To perform
-endianness checks, you may define __CHECK_ENDIAN__:
+The optional make variable CF can be used to pass arguments to sparse. The
+build system passes -Wbitwise to sparse automatically. To perform endianness
+checks, you may define __CHECK_ENDIAN__:
- make C=2 CHECKFLAGS="-D__CHECK_ENDIAN__"
+ make C=2 CF="-D__CHECK_ENDIAN__"
These checks are disabled by default as they generate a host of warnings.