Messages in this thread | | | From | (Linus Torvalds) | Date | 6 Sep 2000 10:14:41 -0700 |
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In article <20000906115105.B20244@pcep-jamie.cern.ch>, Jamie Lokier <lk@tantalophile.demon.co.uk> wrote: >Linus Torvalds wrote: >> And I'm saying that if people really want to do this, then use the >> computer to do it for you, having more than just "grep", and making your >> tools aware of it. > >I'd just like to add, for the benefit of onlookers, that this is >quite easy. > >Temporarily change name of `count' in struct page in your private tree; >recompile. Voila! Every occurence of page->count will show as a >compile error, with line number.
Yes. This is, in fact, how a lot of these things have been done. Often the name-change isn't even just temporary - it stays, because that way nobody will be able to compile old code that depends on old conventions even by mistake.
However, what I think Al Viro dislikes about this is that it does tend to leave code that won't compile, just because some of the accesses are in places that the compiler doesn't see due to the pre-processor (or due to other build-rules: like in architectures that aren't the one that the developer uses).
That said, it works. This is also the reason why I want the kernel to use as tight type-checking as C allows: because it again allows people to change things _without_ having to be perfectly aware of every single detail that depends on the old calling sequences, as the compiler will warn if the types are mis-used.
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