I previously submitted a fix for a bug in the choice feature [1], where
I mentioned, "Another (much cleaner) approach would be to remove the
tristate choice support entirely".
There are more issues in the tristate choice feature. For example, you
can observe a couple of bugs in the following test code.
[Test Code]
config MODULES
def_bool y
modules
choice
prompt "tristate choice"
default A
config A
tristate "A"
config B
tristate "B"
endchoice
Bug 1: the 'default' property is not correctly processed
'make alldefconfig' produces:
CONFIG_MODULES=y
# CONFIG_A is not set
# CONFIG_B is not set
However, the correct output should be:
CONFIG_MODULES=y
CONFIG_A=y
# CONFIG_B is not set
The unit test file, scripts/kconfig/tests/choice/alldef_expected_config,
is wrong as well.
Bug 2: choice members never get 'y' with randconfig
For the test code above, the following combinations are possible:
A B
(1) y n
(2) n y
(3) m m
(4) m n
(5) n m
(6) n n
'make randconfig' never produces (1) or (2).
These bugs are fixable, but a more critical problem is the lack of a
sensible syntax to specify the default for the tristate choice.
The default for the choice must be one of the choice members, which
cannot specify any of the patterns (3) through (6) above.
In addition, I have never seen it being used in a useful way.
The following commits removed unnecessary use of tristate choices:
- df8df5e4bc ("usb: get rid of 'choice' for legacy gadget drivers")
- bfb57ef054 ("rapidio: remove choice for enumeration")
This commit removes the tristate choice support entirely, which allows
me to delete a lot of code, making further refactoring easier.
Note:
This includes the revert of commit fa64e5f6a3 ("kconfig/symbol.c:
handle choice_values that depend on 'm' symbols"). It was suspicious
because it did not address the root cause but introduced inconsistency
in visibility between choice members and other symbols.
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-kbuild/20240427104231.2728905-1-masahiroy@kernel.org/T/#m0a1bb6992581462ceca861b409bb33cb8fd7dbae
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Nicolas Schier <nicolas@fjasle.eu>
The 'choice' statement is primarily used to exclusively select one
option, but the 'optional' property allows all entries to be disabled.
In the following example, both A and B can be disabled simultaneously:
choice
prompt "choose A, B, or nothing"
optional
config A
bool "A"
config B
bool "B"
endchoice
You can achieve the equivalent outcome by other means.
A common solution is to add another option to guard the choice block.
In the following example, you can set ENABLE_A_B_CHOICE=n to disable
the entire choice block:
choice
prompt "choose A or B"
depends on ENABLE_A_B_CHOICE
config A
bool "A"
config B
bool "B"
endchoice
Another approach is to insert one more entry:
choice
prompt "choose A, B, or disable both"
config A
bool "A"
config B
bool "B"
config DISABLE_A_AND_B
bool "choose this to disable both A and B"
endchoice
Some real examples are DEBUG_INFO_NONE, INITRAMFS_COMPRESSION_NONE,
LTO_NONE, etc.
The 'optional' property is even more unnecessary for a tristate choice.
Without the 'optional' property, you can disable A and B; you can set
'm' in the choice prompt, and disable A and B individually:
choice
prompt "choose one built-in or make them modular"
config A
tristate "A"
config B
tristate "B"
endchoice
In conclusion, the 'optional' property was unneeded.
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Nicolas Schier <n.schier@avm.de>
The calculation of 'choice' is a bit complicated part in Kconfig.
The behavior of 'y' choice is intuitive. If choice values are tristate,
the choice can be 'm' where each value can be enabled independently.
Also, if a choice is marked as 'optional', the whole choice can be
invisible.
Test basic functionality of choice.
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masahiro@socionext.com>
Reviewed-by: Ulf Magnusson <ulfalizer@gmail.com>
