[Devel] [PATCH 0/15] Make common helpers for seq_files that work with list_head-s (v2)

[Pavel Emelianov]

Many places in kernel use seq_file API to iterate over a regular
list_head. The code for such iteration is identical in all the
places, so it's worth introducing a common helpers.

This makes code about 300 lines smaller:

 block/genhd.c                                         |   40 +++-----
 crypto/proc.c                                         |   17 ---
 drivers/char/misc.c                                   |   18 ----
 drivers/input/input.c                                 |   29 ------
 drivers/isdn/capi/kcapi_proc.c                        |   28 ------
 fs/afs/proc.c                                         |   81 ++----------------
 fs/namespace.c                                        |   14 ---
 fs/nfs/client.c                                       |   54 +-----------
 fs/proc/proc_tty.c                                    |   15 ---
 fs/seq_file.c                                         |   34 +++++++
 include/linux/seq_file.h                              |   11 ++
 kernel/module.c                                       |   17 ---
 mm/slab.c                                             |   28 +-----
 net/atm/br2684.c                                      |   22 ----
 net/core/sock.c                                       |   39 --------
 net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_conntrack_l3proto_ipv4_compat.c |   27 ------
 net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_expect.c                   |   27 ------
 net/rxrpc/ar-proc.c                                   |   48 +---------
 18 files changed, 126 insertions(+), 423 deletions(-)

The first version of this patch made the helper functions static inline
in the seq_file.h header. This patch moves them to the fs/seq_file.c as
Andrew proposed. The vmlinux .text section sizes are as follows:

2.6.22-rc1-mm1:              0x001794d5
with the previous version:   0x00179505
with this patch:             0x00179135

The config file used was make allnoconfig with the "y" inclusion of all
the possible options to make the files modified by the patch compile plus
drivers I have on the test node.