TRACE_PRINTK(9)                           Driver Basics                           TRACE_PRINTK(9)



NAME
       trace_printk - printf formatting in the ftrace buffer

SYNOPSIS
       trace_printk(fmt, ...);

ARGUMENTS
       fmt
           the printf format for printing

       ...
           variable arguments

NOTE
       __trace_printk is an internal function for trace_printk and the ip is passed in via the
       trace_printk macro.

       This function allows a kernel developer to debug fast path sections that printk is not
       appropriate for. By scattering in various printk like tracing in the code, a developer can
       quickly see where problems are occurring.

       This is intended as a debugging tool for the developer only. Please refrain from leaving
       trace_printks scattered around in your code. (Extra memory is used for special buffers
       that are allocated when trace_printk is used)

       A little optization trick is done here. If there's only one argument, there's no need to
       scan the string for printf formats. The trace_puts will suffice. But how can we take
       advantage of using trace_puts when trace_printk has only one argument? By stringifying the
       args and checking the size we can tell whether or not there are args.
       __stringify((__VA_ARGS__)) will turn into “()\0” with a size of 3 when there are no args,
       anything else will be bigger. All we need to do is define a string to this, and then take
       its size and compare to 3. If it's bigger, use do_trace_printk otherwise, optimize it to
       trace_puts. Then just let gcc optimize the rest.

COPYRIGHT
Kernel Hackers Manual 4.8.                 January 2017                           TRACE_PRINTK(9)