Re: crc32 cleanups

[Jan-Marek Glogowski]

That doesn't solve the problem, if your kernel doesn't use the crc
functions but an externel one (special driver - eventually binary) module
needs the code. The external driver may give a message like "crc functions
needed - please recompile your kernel with crc support". Is this ok for
the normal user ?

> Just use the existing linker features. Link the crc code as an .a library.
> If some code needs it it'll get included. If it needs initialization
> use the existing __initcall() setup. It'll generate a call to the
> initialization function when it is linked in, and none if it is not.
>
> [Note that __initcall may be a bit tricky here if some other __initcall
> user like an ethernet driver needs crc32 too; there is unfortunately no
> priority mechanism in __initcall to enforce that the crc32 init runs before
> the other initcalls. best would probably just to use a static table to avoid
> this issue]

Jan-Marek