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-Concept
--------
-
-The basic idea was inspired by Make. When we look at Make, we notice sort of
-two languages in one. One language describes dependency graphs consisting of
-targets and prerequisites. The other is a macro language for performing textual
-substitution.
-
-There is clear distinction between the two language stages. For example, you
-can write a makefile like follows:
-
- APP := foo
- SRC := foo.c
- CC := gcc
-
- $(APP): $(SRC)
- $(CC) -o $(APP) $(SRC)
-
-The macro language replaces the variable references with their expanded form,
-and handles as if the source file were input like follows:
-
- foo: foo.c
- gcc -o foo foo.c
-
-Then, Make analyzes the dependency graph and determines the targets to be
-updated.
-
-The idea is quite similar in Kconfig - it is possible to describe a Kconfig
-file like this:
-
- CC := gcc
-
- config CC_HAS_FOO
- def_bool $(shell, $(srctree)/scripts/gcc-check-foo.sh $(CC))
-
-The macro language in Kconfig processes the source file into the following
-intermediate:
-
- config CC_HAS_FOO
- def_bool y
-
-Then, Kconfig moves onto the evaluation stage to resolve inter-symbol
-dependency as explained in kconfig-language.txt.
-
-
-Variables
----------
-
-Like in Make, a variable in Kconfig works as a macro variable. A macro
-variable is expanded "in place" to yield a text string that may then be
-expanded further. To get the value of a variable, enclose the variable name in
-$( ). The parentheses are required even for single-letter variable names; $X is
-a syntax error. The curly brace form as in ${CC} is not supported either.
-
-There are two types of variables: simply expanded variables and recursively
-expanded variables.
-
-A simply expanded variable is defined using the := assignment operator. Its
-righthand side is expanded immediately upon reading the line from the Kconfig
-file.
-
-A recursively expanded variable is defined using the = assignment operator.
-Its righthand side is simply stored as the value of the variable without
-expanding it in any way. Instead, the expansion is performed when the variable
-is used.
-
-There is another type of assignment operator; += is used to append text to a
-variable. The righthand side of += is expanded immediately if the lefthand
-side was originally defined as a simple variable. Otherwise, its evaluation is
-deferred.
-
-The variable reference can take parameters, in the following form:
-
- $(name,arg1,arg2,arg3)
-
-You can consider the parameterized reference as a function. (more precisely,
-"user-defined function" in contrast to "built-in function" listed below).
-
-Useful functions must be expanded when they are used since the same function is
-expanded differently if different parameters are passed. Hence, a user-defined
-function is defined using the = assignment operator. The parameters are
-referenced within the body definition with $(1), $(2), etc.
-
-In fact, recursively expanded variables and user-defined functions are the same
-internally. (In other words, "variable" is "function with zero argument".)
-When we say "variable" in a broad sense, it includes "user-defined function".
-
-
-Built-in functions
-------------------
-
-Like Make, Kconfig provides several built-in functions. Every function takes a
-particular number of arguments.
-
-In Make, every built-in function takes at least one argument. Kconfig allows
-zero argument for built-in functions, such as $(fileno), $(lineno). You could
-consider those as "built-in variable", but it is just a matter of how we call
-it after all. Let's say "built-in function" here to refer to natively supported
-functionality.
-
-Kconfig currently supports the following built-in functions.
-
- - $(shell,command)
-
- The "shell" function accepts a single argument that is expanded and passed
- to a subshell for execution. The standard output of the command is then read
- and returned as the value of the function. Every newline in the output is
- replaced with a space. Any trailing newlines are deleted. The standard error
- is not returned, nor is any program exit status.
-
- - $(info,text)
-
- The "info" function takes a single argument and prints it to stdout.
- It evaluates to an empty string.
-
- - $(warning-if,condition,text)
-
- The "warning-if" function takes two arguments. If the condition part is "y",
- the text part is sent to stderr. The text is prefixed with the name of the
- current Kconfig file and the current line number.
-
- - $(error-if,condition,text)
-
- The "error-if" function is similar to "warning-if", but it terminates the
- parsing immediately if the condition part is "y".
-
- - $(filename)
-
- The 'filename' takes no argument, and $(filename) is expanded to the file
- name being parsed.
-
- - $(lineno)
-
- The 'lineno' takes no argument, and $(lineno) is expanded to the line number
- being parsed.
-
-
-Make vs Kconfig
----------------
-
-Kconfig adopts Make-like macro language, but the function call syntax is
-slightly different.
-
-A function call in Make looks like this:
-
- $(func-name arg1,arg2,arg3)
-
-The function name and the first argument are separated by at least one
-whitespace. Then, leading whitespaces are trimmed from the first argument,
-while whitespaces in the other arguments are kept. You need to use a kind of
-trick to start the first parameter with spaces. For example, if you want
-to make "info" function print " hello", you can write like follows:
-
- empty :=
- space := $(empty) $(empty)
- $(info $(space)$(space)hello)
-
-Kconfig uses only commas for delimiters, and keeps all whitespaces in the
-function call. Some people prefer putting a space after each comma delimiter:
-
- $(func-name, arg1, arg2, arg3)
-
-In this case, "func-name" will receive " arg1", " arg2", " arg3". The presence
-of leading spaces may matter depending on the function. The same applies to
-Make - for example, $(subst .c, .o, $(sources)) is a typical mistake; it
-replaces ".c" with " .o".
-
-In Make, a user-defined function is referenced by using a built-in function,
-'call', like this:
-
- $(call my-func,arg1,arg2,arg3)
-
-Kconfig invokes user-defined functions and built-in functions in the same way.
-The omission of 'call' makes the syntax shorter.
-
-In Make, some functions treat commas verbatim instead of argument separators.
-For example, $(shell echo hello, world) runs the command "echo hello, world".
-Likewise, $(info hello, world) prints "hello, world" to stdout. You could say
-this is _useful_ inconsistency.
-
-In Kconfig, for simpler implementation and grammatical consistency, commas that
-appear in the $( ) context are always delimiters. It means
-
- $(shell, echo hello, world)
-
-is an error because it is passing two parameters where the 'shell' function
-accepts only one. To pass commas in arguments, you can use the following trick:
-
- comma := ,
- $(shell, echo hello$(comma) world)
-
-
-Caveats
--------
-
-A variable (or function) cannot be expanded across tokens. So, you cannot use
-a variable as a shorthand for an expression that consists of multiple tokens.
-The following works:
-
- RANGE_MIN := 1
- RANGE_MAX := 3
-
- config FOO
- int "foo"
- range $(RANGE_MIN) $(RANGE_MAX)
-
-But, the following does not work:
-
- RANGES := 1 3
-
- config FOO
- int "foo"
- range $(RANGES)
-
-A variable cannot be expanded to any keyword in Kconfig. The following does
-not work:
-
- MY_TYPE := tristate
-
- config FOO
- $(MY_TYPE) "foo"
- default y
-
-Obviously from the design, $(shell command) is expanded in the textual
-substitution phase. You cannot pass symbols to the 'shell' function.
-The following does not work as expected.
-
- config ENDIAN_FLAG
- string
- default "-mbig-endian" if CPU_BIG_ENDIAN
- default "-mlittle-endian" if CPU_LITTLE_ENDIAN
-
- config CC_HAS_ENDIAN_FLAG
- def_bool $(shell $(srctree)/scripts/gcc-check-flag ENDIAN_FLAG)
-
-Instead, you can do like follows so that any function call is statically
-expanded.
-
- config CC_HAS_ENDIAN_FLAG
- bool
- default $(shell $(srctree)/scripts/gcc-check-flag -mbig-endian) if CPU_BIG_ENDIAN
- default $(shell $(srctree)/scripts/gcc-check-flag -mlittle-endian) if CPU_LITTLE_ENDIAN