I don't think the functionality of having single copies in case an out of line version was needed was ever required by the Linux kernel.
extern inline was used in the kernel a long time ago as a "poor man's -Winline". Basically the intention was to get an linker error if the inlining didn't work for some reason because if we say inline we mean inline. But that's long obsolete because the requirements of the C++ "template is turing complete" people has broken inlining so badly (they want a lot of inlining, but not too much inlining because otherwise their compile times explode and the heuristics needed for making some of these pathologic cases work seems to break a lot of other sane code) that the kernel was forced to define inline to __attribute__((always_inline)). And with that you get an error if inlining fails. So the original purpose if extern inline is fulfilled by static inline now. However extern inline also doesn't hurt, it really makes no difference now. -Andi - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/