This document was written a long time ago. Update it.
[1] Drop the version information
The range of the supported GCC versions are always changing. The
current minimal GCC version is 4.9, and commit 1e860048c5
("gcc-plugins: simplify GCC plugin-dev capability test") removed the
old code accordingly.
We do not need to mention specific version ranges like "all gcc versions
from 4.5 to 6.0" since we forget to update the documentation when we
raise the minimal compiler version.
[2] Drop the C compiler statements
Since commit 77342a02ff ("gcc-plugins: drop support for GCC <= 4.7")
the GCC plugin infrastructure only supports g++.
[3] Drop supported architectures
As of v5.11-rc4, the infrastructure supports more architectures;
arm, arm64, mips, powerpc, riscv, s390, um, and x86. (just grep
"select HAVE_GCC_PLUGINS") Again, we miss to update this document when a
new architecture is supported. Let's just say "only some architectures".
[4] Update the apt-get example
We are now discussing to bump the minimal version to GCC 5. The GCC 4.9
support will be removed sooner or later. Change the package example to
gcc-10-plugin-dev while we are here.
[5] Update the build target
Since commit ce2fd53a10 ("kbuild: descend into scripts/gcc-plugins/
via scripts/Makefile"), "make gcc-plugins" is not supported.
"make scripts" builds all the enabled plugins, including some other
tools.
[6] Update the steps for adding a new plugin
At first, all CONFIG options for GCC plugins were located in arch/Kconfig.
After commit 45332b1bdf ("gcc-plugins: split out Kconfig entries to
scripts/gcc-plugins/Kconfig"), scripts/gcc-plugins/Kconfig became the
central place to collect plugin CONFIG options. In my understanding,
this requirement no longer exists because commit 9f671e5815 ("security:
Create "kernel hardening" config area") moved some of plugin CONFIG
options to another file. Find an appropriate place to add the new CONFIG.
The sub-directory support was never used by anyone, and removed by
commit c17d6179ad ("gcc-plugins: remove unused GCC_PLUGIN_SUBDIR").
Remove the useless $(src)/ prefix.
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Information about GCC plugins is relevant to kernel building, so move this
document to the kbuild manual.
Acked-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Masahiro Yamada
Robert Karszniewicz
Jonathan Corbet