Determining patch impact on a specific config

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 12:39:39PM +0000, Nicholas Mc Guire wrote:
> 
> Hi !
> 
>  For a given patch I would like to find out if it impacts a
>  given configuration or not. Now of course one could compile the
>  kernel for the configuration prior to the patch, then apply the
>  patch and recompile to find out if there is an impact but I would
>  be looking for some smarter solution. Checking files only 
>  unfortunately will not do it, due to ifdefs and friends so make
>  would detect a change and recompile even if the affeted code 
>  area is actualy dropped by the preprocessor.
> 
>  What Im trying to do is find out is, how many of the e.g. stable
>  fixes of 4.4-4.4.14 would have impacted a given configuration - the
>  whole exercise is intended for some statistical analysis of bugs
>  in linux-stable.

Good question.  Such a good one that I know of a number of people
working on this very topic as part of a PhD research project, it's not a
"trivial" thing to deduce automatically.

good luck!

gre gk-h