Re: [PATCH v3 27/34] mm: pagewalk: Add 'depth' parameter to pte_hole

From: Dave Hansen
Date: Wed Feb 27 2019 - 12:38:56 EST


On 2/27/19 9:06 AM, Steven Price wrote:
> #ifdef CONFIG_SHMEM
> static int smaps_pte_hole(unsigned long addr, unsigned long end,
> - struct mm_walk *walk)
> + __always_unused int depth, struct mm_walk *walk)
> {

I think this 'depth' argument is a mistake. It's synthetic and it's
surely going to be a source of bugs.

The page table dumpers seem to be using this to dump out the "name" of a
hole which seems a bit bogus in the first place. I'd much rather teach
the dumpers about the length of the hole, "the hole is 0x12340000 bytes
long", rather than "there's a hole at this level".