Re: [edk2-platform][PATCH v1 1/1] EmbeddedPkg/VirtualRealTimeClockLib : Reduce DEBUG message verbosity

["Samer El-Haj-Mahmoud" <samer.el-haj-mahmoud@arm.com>]

Leif,

I admit, this is not *super* annoying on a normal DEBUG build boot. On the RPi4 for instance, this shows up between 25-50 times until the OS boots (depending on the boot source).

On a test run (such as running SCT), this message is *EXTREMLY* annoying. I see ~6600 instances on one run, accounting for ~60% of the entire debug output during the test. I agree we should not be optimizing for a test run, but this is just beyond being reasonable..

How useful is this message in non-verbose DEBUG output? Does it need to be repeated for every call to LibGetTime() ? I am open for suggestions on rate limiting the output.

--Samer

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leif Lindholm <leif@nuviainc.com>
> Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2021 4:46 PM
> To: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
> Cc: Samer El-Haj-Mahmoud <Samer.El-Haj-Mahmoud@arm.com>;
> devel@edk2.groups.io; Ard Biesheuvel <ardb+tianocore@kernel.org>; Pete
> Batard <pete@akeo.ie>
> Subject: Re: [edk2-platform][PATCH v1 1/1]
> EmbeddedPkg/VirtualRealTimeClockLib : Reduce DEBUG message verbosity
>
> *How* annoying was this?
>
> This is kind of useful information, well at the "would be good to see in a
> regular DEBUG build" level.
>
> This change will have suddenly effectively hidden a message that was already
> present in many platforms, where they were not (very) annoyingly repetitive
> during a normal boot.
>
> It feels the test suite is not the thing that we need to optimise debug output
> for.
>
> Is there some alternative way we can rate limit this?
>
> /
>     Leif
>
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2021 at 17:50:43 +0100, Ard Biesheuvel wrote:
> > On Sat, 20 Feb 2021 at 17:41, Samer El-Haj-Mahmoud
> > <Samer.El-Haj-Mahmoud@arm.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > the DEBUG message for using compilation time epoch is appearing very
> > > frequently on DEBUG firmware builds, for example during UEFI SCT runs.
> > > Reduce verbosity to avoid the annoying repetitive message.
> > >
> > > Cc: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb+tianocore@kernel.org>
> > > Cc: Leif Lindholm <leif@nuviainc.com>
> > > Cc: Pete Batard <pete@akeo.ie>
> > > Signed-off-by: Samer El-Haj-Mahmoud <Samer.El-Haj-
> Mahmoud@arm.com>
> >
> >
> > Reviewed-by: Ard Biesheuvel <ardb@kernel.org>
> >
> > Merged as #1434 into master.
> >
> > > ---
> > >
> > > EmbeddedPkg/Library/VirtualRealTimeClockLib/VirtualRealTimeClockLib.
> > > c | 2 +-
> > >  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> > >
> > > diff --git
> > > a/EmbeddedPkg/Library/VirtualRealTimeClockLib/VirtualRealTimeClockLi
> > > b.c
> > > b/EmbeddedPkg/Library/VirtualRealTimeClockLib/VirtualRealTimeClockLi
> > > b.c index 5c13ed4cf190..4210708cff36 100644
> > > ---
> > > a/EmbeddedPkg/Library/VirtualRealTimeClockLib/VirtualRealTimeClockLi
> > > b.c
> > > +++ b/EmbeddedPkg/Library/VirtualRealTimeClockLib/VirtualRealTimeClo
> > > +++ ckLib.c
> > > @@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ LibGetTime (
> > >      //
> > >      EpochSeconds = BUILD_EPOCH;
> > >      DEBUG ((
> > > -      DEBUG_INFO,
> > > +      DEBUG_VERBOSE,
> > >        "LibGetTime: %s non volatile variable was not found - Using
> compilation time epoch.\n",
> > >        mEpochVariableName
> > >        ));
> > > --
> > > 2.25.1
> > >
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