Subject: Re: [tip:perf/core] tracing: Add DEFINE_EVENT(),
 DEFINE_SINGLE_EVENT() support to docbook
From: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Reply-To: rostedt@goodmis.org
To: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>, mingo@redhat.com, hpa@zytor.com,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, randy.dunlap@oracle.com,
       wcohen@redhat.com, fweisbec@gmail.com, tglx@linutronix.de,
       jbaron@redhat.com, mhiramat@redhat.com,
       linux-tip-commits@vger.kernel.org, Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>
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Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:11:27 -0500
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On Wed, 2009-12-02 at 11:27 -0500, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:

> A few questions about the semantic:
> 
> Is "declare" here always only used as a declaration ? (e.g. only in
> headers, never impacted by CREATE_TRACE_POINT ?)

Well yes it is impacted by CREATE_TRACE_POINT, but so is DECLARE_TRACE
for that matter ;-)

The difference is that DECLARE_EVENT_CLASS will at most (with
CREATE_TRACE_POINT) only create the functions that can be used by other
events. It does not create an event itself. That is, it's not much
different than making a "static inline function" except that function
will not be static nor will it be inline ;-)

> 
> Is "define" here always mapping to a definition ? (e.g. to be used in a
> C file to define the class or event handling stub)

The DEFINE_* will create something that can be hooked to the trace
points in other C files.


> 
> I feel that your DEFINE_EVENT_CLASS might actually be doing a bit more
> than just "defining", it would actually also perform the declaration.
> Same goes for "DEFINE_EVENT". So can you tell us a bit more about that
> is the context of templates ?


Well, the macros used by these are totally off the wall anyway :-) So
any name we come up with will not match what the rest of the kernel does
regardless. But we need to give something that is close.

I'm liking more the:

DECLARE_EVENT_CLASS, DEFINE_EVENT, DEFINE_EVENT_CLASS, because I think
that comes the closest to other semantics in the kernel. That is (once
again)

DECLARE_EVENT_CLASS - makes only the class. It does create helper
functions, but if there's no DEFINE_EVENT that uses them, then they are
just wasting space.

The DEFINE_EVENT will create the trace points in the C file that has
CREATE_TRACE_POINTS defined. But it requires the helper functions
created by a previous DECLARE_EVENT_CLASS.

DEFINE_EVENT_CLASS will do both create a EVENT_CLASS template, as well
as a EVENT that uses the class. The name of the class is a separate
namespace as the event. Here both the class and the event have the same
name, but other events can use this class by referencing the name.

DEFINE_EVENT_CLASS(x, ...);

DEFINE_EVENT(x, y, ...);

The DEFINE_EVENT_CLASS will create a class x and an event x, then the
DEFINE_EVENT will create another event y that uses the same class x.


Actually, with the above, we may not need to have DECLARE_EVENT_CLASS()
at all, because why declare a class if you don't have an event to use
it?  But then again, you may not want the name of the class also a name
of an event.

-- Steve


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