Re: [PATCH] Fix generic WARN_ON message

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Wed Oct 25 2006 - 17:44:24 EST


On Wed 2006-10-25 16:55:22, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 12:04 +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > > * Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > > A warning is a warning, not a BUG.
> > >
> > > > - printk("BUG: warning at %s:%d/%s()\n", __FILE__, \
> > > > + printk("WARNING at %s:%d %s()\n", __FILE__, \
> > >
> > > i'm not really happy about this change.
> > >
> > > Firstly, most WARN_ON()s are /bugs/, not warnings ... If it's a real
> > > warning, a KERN_INFO printk should be done.
> > >
> > > Secondly, the reason i changed it to the 'BUG: ...' format is that i
> > > tried to make it easier for automated tools (and for users) to figure
> > > out that a kernel bug happened.
> >
> > Well... but the message is really bad. It leads to users telling us "I
> > hit BUG in kernel"...
>
> But they *did* hit a BUG. It just so happens that the BUG was fixable.
> We want this reported because a WARN_ON should *never* be hit unless
> there's a bug. If people start getting "WARNING" messages, they will
> more likely not be reporting them.
>
> As Ingo already said, if it is just a "warning" then a normal printk
> should be used.

Fine, then why is the macro called WARN_ON()? That's certainly highly
confusing.

NONFATAL_BUG_ON()?

I hate people reporting BUG (or BUG()) when they hit WARN_ON(), and
current wording certainly makes it easy.
Pavel
--
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
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