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    SubjectRe: [PATCH RFC] [1/9] Core module symbol namespaces code and intro.
    On Thu, 22 Nov 2007 03:43:06 +0100 (CET)
    Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de> wrote:

    >
    > There seems to be rough consensus that the kernel currently has too
    > many exported symbols. A lot of these exports are generally usable
    > utility functions or important driver interfaces; but another large
    > part are functions intended by only one or two very specific modules
    > for a very specific purpose. One example is the TCP code. It has most
    > of its internals exported, but only for use by tcp_ipv6.c (and now a
    > few more by the TCP/IP congestion modules) But it doesn't make sense
    > to include these exported for a specific module functions into a
    > broader "kernel interface". External modules assume they can use
    > these functions, but they were never intended for that.
    >
    > This patch allows to export symbols only for specific modules by
    > introducing symbol name spaces. A module name space has a white
    > list of modules that are allowed to import symbols for it; all others
    > can't use the symbols.
    >
    > It adds two new macros:
    >
    > MODULE_NAMESPACE_ALLOW(namespace, module);
    >
    > Allow module to import symbols from namespace. module is the module
    > name without .ko as displayed by lsmod. Must be in the same module
    > as the export (and be duplicated if there are multiple modules
    > exporting symbols to a namespace). Multiple allows for the same name
    > space are allowed.
    >
    > EXPORT_SYMBOL_NS(namespace, symbol);
    >

    Hi,

    I like this concept in general; I have one minor comment; right now
    your namespace argument is like

    EXPORT_SYMBOL_NS(foo, some_symbol);

    from a language-like pov I kinda wonder if it's nicer to do

    EXPORT_SYMBOL_NS("foo", some_symbol);

    because foo isn't something in C scope, but more a string-like
    identifier...



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