> From: Bruce Richardson [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, 22 January 2026 14.32 > > On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 02:13:06PM +0100, Morten Brørup wrote: > > > From: Bruce Richardson [mailto:[email protected]] > > > Sent: Thursday, 22 January 2026 13.24 > > > > > > Having the net_null driver always available can be convenient and > > > allows > > > use by unit tests, so add this trivial driver to the always-enable > > > list. > > > > > > Signed-off-by: Bruce Richardson <[email protected]> > > > > > > --- > > > I'm not sure if we want this to be always enabled or not, so > sending > > > this as an RFC. I can see definite advantages to doing so, but I > also > > > dislike having too many components on the always-enable list. > > > > > > Since I'm ambivilent myself, including this patch so the community > can > > > decide. > > > > I don't think real applications use this. > > If they do, they can include it manually. > > > > My main objection is: > > We are setting the wrong precedence if we make stuff like this > mandatory for convenience. > > > > But I agree with the reason you are suggesting it. > > > > Is there some other way it can be enabled for unit tests? > > Maybe the null driver can depend on the unit tests being built? > > > > I don't mind that the driver is being built. > > I just don't want it included by default when statically linking a > monolithic application. > > > > I'm flexible on this RFC, so it's a very soft NAK from me. > > If it can be disabled at build time, I'm OK with it. (But still > concerned about setting the wrong precedence.) > > > Yes, I agree. > > Why I'm proposing this is because, in order to give me faster rebuilds > and > because of the hardware I have available to me, I generally set up my > builds with "-Denable_drivers=net/intel/*", since that really speeds up > my > dev-build-test cycle. In doing so, though, I do miss out on having some > unit tests available when I run the fast-test suite, which is why I > suggested this addition in case there are others who limit the builds > to > just the hardware they are using.
You can build with "-Denable_drivers=net/intel/*,net/null". Then I'll suggest an alternative to this patch: Change the fast-test application, so it emits an informational message about which tests are being skipped because the net/null driver is missing.
