Re: port-evbarm/40311: No kernel symbols on tsarm

[Lloyd Parkes <lloyd%must-have-coffee.gen.nz@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR port-evbarm/40311; it has been noted by 
GNATS.

From: Lloyd Parkes <lloyd%must-have-coffee.gen.nz@localhost>
To: Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost>
Cc: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Subject: Re: port-evbarm/40311: No kernel symbols on tsarm
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 17:06:11 +1300

 On 2/01/2009, at 2:15 PM, Martin Husemann wrote:
 
 > I think it would be better to move the #ifdef SYMTAB_SPACE handling
 > from ksyms_addsyms_elf() to ksyms_init().
 
 I'm not so sure. ksyms_init() is called very late these days and  
 getting the symbols in place early is good. It would be kind of nice  
 if dbsym actually did this for us when the kernel is built. With an  
 unoptimised kernel, ksyms_addsyms_elf() takes quite some time to  
 complete and it is still noticeable with an optmised kernel. With the  
 new MODULAR structure, it is no longer viable to run without a symbol  
 table.
 
 > Calls that look like they add zero symbols from nowhere but instead  
 > perform
 > deep magic are kinda evil.
 
 It took me at least half a day to find this.
 
 It might be made better with a little bit of sugar. Maybe something like
 
 #define ELF_SYMTAB_SYMBOLS NULL
 
 and rename ksyms_init to something that doesn't make it look like it  
 should be called before everything else.
 
 Anyway, this PR is about making tsarm work with ksyms, and not about  
 removing the warts from ksyms.
 
 Cheers,
 Lloyd