From: Ted Ts'o Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/9] ext4: Add -DDEBUG to Makefile Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:39:37 -0400 Message-ID: <20120319043937.GN31682@thunk.org> References: <7ee60f3b750f4500f9bdcb64f358acbf17987036.1331856300.git.joe@perches.com> <4F63646D.1040700@cavium.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Joe Perches , Andreas Dilger , linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org To: David Daney Return-path: Received: from li9-11.members.linode.com ([67.18.176.11]:48454 "EHLO test.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751899Ab2CSEjh (ORCPT ); Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:39:37 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4F63646D.1040700@cavium.com> Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 09:03:57AM -0700, David Daney wrote: > > In many other susbsystems/drivers, the definition of DEBUG is gated > by a separate Kconfig symbol used to select debugging just for that > susbsystem/driver (see CONFIG_MMC_DEBUG for example). In ext4 we have many different debugging patches, and in general you'd never want to enable them all at once (you'd get way too much noise). The debugging statements are there when a developer is debugging very specific section of code (i.e., the directory index, or the extent tree, or the block allocator, etc.). It's really only ext4 developers who need to use those debugging statements, and even for them it's quite rare. So I've never considered it worthwhile to enable them via a CONFIG_* menu item; developers who are debugging a specific problem will generally just drop in the specific #define on an ad hoc basis, and that works fine. - Ted