tree cd6fbf7499a88942672ffdcc558138f2da223510
parent 8f268881d7d278047b00eed54bbb9288dbd6ab23
author Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org> 1576756260 +0900
committer Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org> 1576941935 +0900

kbuild: clarify the difference between obj-y and obj-m w.r.t. descending

Kbuild descends into a directory by either 'y' or 'm', but there is an
important difference.

Kbuild combines the built-in objects into built-in.a in each directory.
The built-in.a in the directory visited by obj-y is merged into the
built-in.a in the parent directory. This merge happens recursively
when Kbuild is ascending back towards the top directory, then built-in
objects are linked into vmlinux eventually. This works properly only
when the Makefile specifying obj-y is reachable by the chain of obj-y.

On the other hand, Kbuild does not take built-in.a from the directory
visited by obj-m. This it, all the objects in that directory are
supposed to be modular. If Kbuild descends into a directory by obj-m,
but the Makefile in the sub-directory specifies obj-y, those objects
are just left orphan.

The current statement "Kbuild only uses this information to decide that
it needs to visit the directory" is misleading. Clarify the difference.

Reported-by: Johan Hovold <johan@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Johan Hovold <johan@kernel.org>