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Copyright 2004 Linus Torvalds
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Copyright 2004 Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
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Copyright 2006 Bob Copeland <me@bobcopeland.com>
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Using sparse for typechecking
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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"__bitwise" is a type attribute, so you have to do something like this:
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typedef int __bitwise pm_request_t;
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PM_SUSPEND = (__force pm_request_t) 1,
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PM_RESUME = (__force pm_request_t) 2
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which makes PM_SUSPEND and PM_RESUME "bitwise" integers (the "__force" is
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there because sparse will complain about casting to/from a bitwise type,
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but in this case we really _do_ want to force the conversion). And because
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the enum values are all the same type, now "enum pm_request" will be that
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And with gcc, all the __bitwise/__force stuff goes away, and it all ends
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up looking just like integers to gcc.
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Quite frankly, you don't need the enum there. The above all really just
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boils down to one special "int __bitwise" type.
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So the simpler way is to just do
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typedef int __bitwise pm_request_t;
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#define PM_SUSPEND ((__force pm_request_t) 1)
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#define PM_RESUME ((__force pm_request_t) 2)
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and you now have all the infrastructure needed for strict typechecking.
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One small note: the constant integer "0" is special. You can use a
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constant zero as a bitwise integer type without sparse ever complaining.
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This is because "bitwise" (as the name implies) was designed for making
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sure that bitwise types don't get mixed up (little-endian vs big-endian
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vs cpu-endian vs whatever), and there the constant "0" really _is_
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__bitwise__ - to be used for relatively compact stuff (gfp_t, etc.) that
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is mostly warning-free and is supposed to stay that way. Warnings will
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be generated without __CHECK_ENDIAN__.
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__bitwise - noisy stuff; in particular, __le*/__be* are that. We really
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don't want to drown in noise unless we'd explicitly asked for it.
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You can get latest released versions from the Sparse homepage at
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https://sparse.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page
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Alternatively, you can get snapshots of the latest development version
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of sparse using git to clone..
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git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/devel/sparse/sparse.git
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DaveJ has hourly generated tarballs of the git tree available at..
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http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/projects/git-snapshots/sparse/
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Once you have it, just do
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as a regular user, and it will install sparse in your ~/bin directory.
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Do a kernel make with "make C=1" to run sparse on all the C files that get
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recompiled, or use "make C=2" to run sparse on the files whether they need to
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be recompiled or not. The latter is a fast way to check the whole tree if you
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have already built it.
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The optional make variable CF can be used to pass arguments to sparse. The
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build system passes -Wbitwise to sparse automatically. To perform endianness
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checks, you may define __CHECK_ENDIAN__:
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make C=2 CF="-D__CHECK_ENDIAN__"
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These checks are disabled by default as they generate a host of warnings.