linux/Documentation/kbuild/Kconfig.recursion-issue-02
Thorsten Leemhuis a9d85efb25 docs: use the lore redirector everywhere
Change all links from using the lkml redirector to the lore redirector,
as the kernel.org admin recently indicated: we shouldn't be using
lkml.kernel.org anymore because the domain can create confusion, as it
indicates it is only valid for messages sent to the LKML; the convention
has been to use https://lore.kernel.org/r/msgid for this reason.

In this process also change three links from using http to https.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20211006170025.qw3glxvocczfuhar@meerkat.local
CC: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
CC: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
CC: Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>
CC: Hu Haowen <src.res@email.cn>
CC: Alex Shi <alexs@kernel.org>
CC: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Signed-off-by: Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@leemhuis.info>
Reviewed-by: Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@linuxfoundation.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/5bb55bac6ba10fafab19bf2b21572dd0e2f8cea2.1633593385.git.linux@leemhuis.info
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
2021-10-12 13:58:19 -06:00

64 lines
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# Cumulative Kconfig recursive issue
# ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#
# Test with:
#
# make KBUILD_KCONFIG=Documentation/kbuild/Kconfig.recursion-issue-02 allnoconfig
#
# The recursive limitations with Kconfig has some non intuitive implications on
# kconfig semantics which are documented here. One known practical implication
# of the recursive limitation is that drivers cannot negate features from other
# drivers if they share a common core requirement and use disjoint semantics to
# annotate those requirements, ie, some drivers use "depends on" while others
# use "select". For instance it means if a driver A and driver B share the same
# core requirement, and one uses "select" while the other uses "depends on" to
# annotate this, all features that driver A selects cannot now be negated by
# driver B.
#
# A perhaps not so obvious implication of this is that, if semantics on these
# core requirements are not carefully synced, as drivers evolve features
# they select or depend on end up becoming shared requirements which cannot be
# negated by other drivers.
#
# The example provided in Documentation/kbuild/Kconfig.recursion-issue-02
# describes a simple driver core layout of example features a kernel might
# have. Let's assume we have some CORE functionality, then the kernel has a
# series of bells and whistles it desires to implement, its not so advanced so
# it only supports bells at this time: CORE_BELL_A and CORE_BELL_B. If
# CORE_BELL_A has some advanced feature CORE_BELL_A_ADVANCED which selects
# CORE_BELL_A then CORE_BELL_A ends up becoming a common BELL feature which
# other bells in the system cannot negate. The reason for this issue is
# due to the disjoint use of semantics on expressing each bell's relationship
# with CORE, one uses "depends on" while the other uses "select". Another
# more important reason is that kconfig does not check for dependencies listed
# under 'select' for a symbol, when such symbols are selected kconfig them
# as mandatory required symbols. For more details on the heavy handed nature
# of select refer to Documentation/kbuild/Kconfig.select-break
#
# To fix this the "depends on CORE" must be changed to "select CORE", or the
# "select CORE" must be changed to "depends on CORE".
#
# For an example real world scenario issue refer to the attempt to remove
# "select FW_LOADER" [0], in the end the simple alternative solution to this
# problem consisted on matching semantics with newly introduced features.
#
# [0] https://lore.kernel.org/r/1432241149-8762-1-git-send-email-mcgrof@do-not-panic.com
mainmenu "Simple example to demo cumulative kconfig recursive dependency implication"
config CORE
tristate
config CORE_BELL_A
tristate
depends on CORE
config CORE_BELL_A_ADVANCED
tristate
select CORE_BELL_A
config CORE_BELL_B
tristate
depends on !CORE_BELL_A
select CORE