译 《Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.txt》

本文，不是严格的逐字翻译，且只对关心的部分进行翻译，来源于linux-4.1.15/Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.txt

Introduction

The configuration database is a collection of configuration options
organized in a tree structure:
组织好的数据是树状结构的，像下面这样的

	+- Code maturity level options
	|  +- Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers
	+- General setup
	|  +- Networking support
	|  +- System V IPC
	|  +- BSD Process Accounting
	|  +- Sysctl support
	+- Loadable module support
	|  +- Enable loadable module support
	|     +- Set version information on all module symbols
	|     +- Kernel module loader
	+- ...

Every entry has its own dependencies. These dependencies are used
to determine the visibility of an entry. Any child entry is only
visible if its parent entry is also visible.

每一个入口（编译项）都 有自己的依赖。这些依赖决定着入口的可见性，如果子项要可见，则上一级的选项也要可见才行

Menu entries

大部分的编译项都是可配置的，下面是一个例子。
Most entries define a config option; all other entries help to organize
them. A single configuration option is defined like this:

config MODVERSIONS
	bool "Set version information on all module symbols"
	depends on MODULES
	help
	  Usually, modules have to be recompiled whenever you switch to a new
	  kernel.  ...

Every line starts with a key word and can be followed by multiple
arguments. “config” starts a new config entry. The following lines
define attributes for this config option. Attributes can be the type of
the config option, input prompt, dependencies, help text and default
values. A config option can be defined multiple times with the same
name, but every definition can have only a single input prompt and the type must not conflict.

每一行都有一个关键字，然后跟着若干参数，config 定义了一个新的配置项，接下的的几行决定这个配置项的属性，属性有：是否配置，提示，依赖，帮助信息和默认值，一个配置属性可以定义多次，但是提示不能相同类型也不能冲突。

Menu attributes

A menu entry can have a number of attributes. Not all of them are
applicable everywhere (see syntax).

• type definition: “bool”/“tristate”/“string”/“hex”/“int”
  Every config option must have a type. There are only two basic types:
  tristate and string; the other types are based on these two. The type
  definition optionally accepts an input prompt, so these two examples
  are equivalent:

类型有： “bool”，“tristate”，“string”，“hex”，“int”
每一个配置项必须要有一个类型，有两种基本类型：tristate和string，其它的类型都是基于这两种类型的，类型这一行可以允许有提示信息

	bool "Networking support"
  and
	bool
	prompt "Networking support"

这两种写法的效果是一样的

• input prompt: “prompt” [“if” ]
  Every menu entry can have at most one prompt, which is used to display
  to the user. Optionally dependencies only for this prompt can be added
  with “if”.
  每个菜单选项最多只能有一个显示给用户的输入提示。可以用 “if” 来表示该提示的依赖关系

• default value: “default” [“if” ]
  A config option can have any number of default values. If multiple
  default values are visible, only the first defined one is active.
  Default values are not limited to the menu entry where they are
  defined. This means the default can be defined somewhere else or be
  overridden by an earlier definition.
  The default value is only assigned to the config symbol if no other
  value was set by the user (via the input prompt above). If an input
  prompt is visible the default value is presented to the user and can
  be overridden by him.
  Optionally, dependencies only for this default value can be added with
  “if”.

一个配置选项可以有任意多个默认值。如果有多个默认值，那么只有第一个被定义的值是有效的，默认值不一定是定义在配置项的定义的地方，这就意味着默认值可以定义在任何地方或被更早的定义覆盖
如果用户没有设置(通过上面的输入提示)，配置选项的值就是默认值。如果可以显示输入提示的话，就会把默认值显示给用户，并可以让用户进行修改。

默认值的依赖关系可以用 “if” 添加

• type definition + default value:
  “def_bool”/“def_tristate” [“if” ]
  This is a shorthand notation for a type definition plus a value.
  Optionally dependencies for this default value can be added with “if”.

• dependencies: “depends on”
  This defines a dependency for this menu entry. If multiple
  dependencies are defined, they are connected with ‘&&’. Dependencies
  are applied to all other options within this menu entry (which also
  accept an “if” expression), so these two examples are equivalent:

为配置项定义一个依赖，如果有多个依赖可以使用 “&&”符号，配置项的其它条目也可以使用依赖，同样也接受 “if”，如下的写法是等价的

只有depends on A,这个A被配置了，这一个配置项目才可以配置

	bool "foo" if BAR
	default y if BAR
  and
	depends on BAR
	bool "foo"
	default y

• reverse dependencies: “select” [“if” ]
  While normal dependencies reduce the upper limit of a symbol (see
  below), reverse dependencies can be used to force a lower limit of
  another symbol. The value of the current menu symbol is used as the
  minimal value can be set to. If is selected multiple
  times, the limit is set to the largest selection.
  Reverse dependencies can only be used with boolean or tristate
  symbols.
  反向依赖使用“select”，
  我自己配置好了，其它 select的都得配置上
  Note:
  select should be used with care. select will force
  a symbol to a value without visiting the dependencies.
  By abusing select you are able to select a symbol FOO even
  if FOO depends on BAR that is not set.
  In general use select only for non-visible symbols
  (no prompts anywhere) and for symbols with no dependencies.
  That will limit the usefulness but on the other hand avoid
  the illegal configurations all over.

• limiting menu display: “visible if”
  This attribute is only applicable to menu blocks, if the condition is
  false, the menu block is not displayed to the user (the symbols
  contained there can still be selected by other symbols, though). It is
  similar to a conditional “prompt” attribute for individual menu
  entries. Default value of “visible” is true.

• numerical ranges: “range” [“if” ]
  This allows to limit the range of possible input values for int
  and hex symbols. The user can only input a value which is larger than
  or equal to the first symbol and smaller than or equal to the second
  symbol.

• help text: “help” or “—help—”
  This defines a help text. The end of the help text is determined by
  the indentation level, this means it ends at the first line which has
  a smaller indentation than the first line of the help text.
  “—help—” and “help” do not differ in behaviour, “—help—” is
  used to help visually separate configuration logic from help within
  the file as an aid to developers.
  help：定义了一个帮助文本，帮助文本的末尾由缩进级别决定的

• misc options: “option” [=]
  Various less common options can be defined via this option syntax,
  which can modify the behaviour of the menu entry and its config
  symbol. These options are currently possible:

  • “defconfig_list”
    This declares a list of default entries which can be used when
    looking for the default configuration (which is used when the main
    .config doesn’t exists yet.)

  • “modules”
    This declares the symbol to be used as the MODULES symbol, which
    enables the third modular state for all config symbols.
    At most one symbol may have the “modules” option set.

  • “env”=
    This imports the environment variable into Kconfig. It behaves like
    a default, except that the value comes from the environment, this
    also means that the behaviour when mixing it with normal defaults is
    undefined at this point. The symbol is currently not exported back
    to the build environment (if this is desired, it can be done via
    another symbol).

  • “allnoconfig_y”
    This declares the symbol as one that should have the value y when
    using “allnoconfig”. Used for symbols that hide other symbols.

Menu dependencies

依赖决定着编译项的可见性，同时也限制了tristate 属性的输入范围，tristate 比boolean多了一个状态，依赖表达式有如下的符号
Dependencies define the visibility of a menu entry and can also reduce
the input range of tristate symbols. The tristate logic used in the
expressions uses one more state than normal boolean logic to express the
module state. Dependency expressions have the following syntax:

<expr> ::= <symbol>                             (1)
           <symbol> '=' <symbol>                (2)
           <symbol> '!=' <symbol>               (3)
           '(' <expr> ')'                       (4)
           '!' <expr>                           (5)
           <expr> '&&' <expr>                   (6)
           <expr> '||' <expr>                   (7)

Expressions are listed in decreasing order of precedence.
表达式以优先级顺序列出

(1) Convert the symbol into an expression. Boolean and tristate symbols
are simply converted into the respective expression values. All
other symbol types result in ‘n’.
(2) If the values of both symbols are equal, it returns ‘y’,
otherwise ‘n’.
(3) If the values of both symbols are equal, it returns ‘n’,
otherwise ‘y’.
(4) Returns the value of the expression. Used to override precedence.
(5) Returns the result of (2-/expr/).
(6) Returns the result of min(/expr/, /expr/).
(7) Returns the result of max(/expr/, /expr/).

An expression can have a value of ‘n’, ‘m’ or ‘y’ (or 0, 1, 2
respectively for calculations). A menu entry becomes visible when its
expression evaluates to ‘m’ or ‘y’.

一个表达式可能有 ‘n’, ‘m’ or ‘y’（ 0, 1, 2，用于计算），一个配置项如果配置成 ‘m’ or ‘y’，则是可见的

There are two types of symbols: constant and non-constant symbols.
Non-constant symbols are the most common ones and are defined with the
‘config’ statement. Non-constant symbols consist entirely of alphanumeric
characters or underscores.
Constant symbols are only part of expressions. Constant symbols are
always surrounded by single or double quotes. Within the quote, any
other character is allowed and the quotes can be escaped using ‘’.

Menu structure

有两种方法来定义菜单项，第一种是显式的
The position of a menu entry in the tree is determined in two ways. First
it can be specified explicitly:

menu "Network device support"
	depends on NET

config NETDEVICES
	...

endmenu

All entries within the “menu” … “endmenu” block become a submenu of
“Network device support”. All subentries inherit the dependencies from
the menu entry, e.g. this means the dependency “NET” is added to the
dependency list of the config option NETDEVICES.

“Network device support”菜单的配置项目被包在"menu" … "endmenu"的结构中，所有的下级配置项的依赖都继承了上级菜单。也就是说，NETDEVICES配置项也依赖于 “NET”

The other way to generate the menu structure is done by analyzing the
dependencies. If a menu entry somehow depends on the previous entry, it
can be made a submenu of it. First, the previous (parent) symbol must
be part of the dependency list and then one of these two conditions
must be true:

• the child entry must become invisible, if the parent is set to ‘n’
• the child entry must only be visible, if the parent is visible
  第二种产生菜单的方法是分析依赖，如果配置项依赖于前面定义的配置项，那么本配置项目就是前一个配置项的子菜单
  首先，父项目（前）要是本项目的依赖，且如下的两个条件必须满足

1,如果父菜单设置成“n”，子菜单必须是可见的，
1,如果父菜单可见，子菜单必须是可见的，

config MODULES
	bool "Enable loadable module support"

config MODVERSIONS
	bool "Set version information on all module symbols"
	depends on MODULES

comment "module support disabled"
	depends on !MODULES

MODVERSIONS directly depends on MODULES, this means it’s only visible if
MODULES is different from ‘n’. The comment on the other hand is always
visible when MODULES is visible (the (empty) dependency of MODULES is
also part of the comment dependencies).

MODVERSIONS直接依赖于MODULES，意味着只要MODULES不为“n”，MODVERSIONS都是可见的

Kconfig syntax（语法）

配置文件 有很多的菜单，关键字如下：
The configuration file describes a series of menu entries, where every
line starts with a keyword (except help texts). The following keywords
end a menu entry:

- config
- menuconfig
- choice/endchoice
- comment
- menu/endmenu
- if/endif
- source

The first five also start the definition of a menu entry.
前面的五个用于定义一个菜单的入口
config:

	"config" <symbol>
	<config options>

This defines a config symbol and accepts any of above
attributes as options.

menuconfig:

	"menuconfig" <symbol>
	<config options>

This is similar to the simple config entry above, but it also gives a
hint to front ends, that all suboptions should be displayed as a
separate list of options.

choices:

	"choice" [symbol]
	<choice options>
	<choice block>
	"endchoice"

choice 内的内定义的配置项只以有两种类型：bool or tristate，bool类型的在这个choice块内只能有一个可以被选上（类似于单选），tristate类型可以把不限制个数的配置项目配置成 “m”，（模块），这种特性可以用于，一个硬件设备对应于多个驱动程序，这样可以把所有的驱动程序都以模块的形式编译出来，但是只有一个能被编译进内核
This defines a choice group and accepts any of the above attributes as
options. A choice can only be of type bool or tristate, while a boolean
choice only allows a single config entry to be selected, a tristate
choice also allows any number of config entries to be set to ‘m’. This
can be used if multiple drivers for a single hardware exists and only a
single driver can be compiled/loaded into the kernel, but all drivers
can be compiled as modules.
A choice accepts another option “optional”, which allows to set the
choice to ‘n’ and no entry needs to be selected.
If no [symbol] is associated with a choice, then you can not have multiple
definitions of that choice. If a [symbol] is associated to the choice,
then you may define the same choice (ie. with the same entries) in another
place.

comment:

	"comment" <prompt>
	<comment options>

This defines a comment which is displayed to the user during the
configuration process and is also echoed to the output files. The only
possible options are dependencies.

menu:

	"menu" <prompt>
	<menu options>
	<menu block>
	"endmenu"

定义一个菜单块
This defines a menu block, see “Menu structure” above for more
information. The only possible options are dependencies and “visible”
attributes.

if:

	"if" <expr>
	<if block>
	"endif"

This defines an if block. The dependency expression is appended
to all enclosed menu entries.

source:

	"source" <prompt>

作用类似于include
This reads the specified configuration file. This file is always parsed.

mainmenu:

	"mainmenu" <prompt>

最顶层的菜单
This sets the config program’s title bar if the config program chooses
to use it. It should be placed at the top of the configuration, before any
other statement.

Kconfig hints

This is a collection of Kconfig tips, most of which aren’t obvious at
first glance and most of which have become idioms in several Kconfig
files.

Adding common features and make the usage configurable

It is a common idiom to implement a feature/functionality that are
relevant for some architectures but not all.
The recommended way to do so is to use a config variable named HAVE_*
that is defined in a common Kconfig file and selected by the relevant
architectures.
An example is the generic IOMAP functionality.

We would in lib/Kconfig see:

# Generic IOMAP is used to ...
config HAVE_GENERIC_IOMAP

config GENERIC_IOMAP
	depends on HAVE_GENERIC_IOMAP && FOO

And in lib/Makefile we would see:
obj-$(CONFIG_GENERIC_IOMAP) += iomap.o

For each architecture using the generic IOMAP functionality we would see:

config X86
	select ...
	select HAVE_GENERIC_IOMAP
	select ...

Note: we use the existing config option and avoid creating a new
config variable to select HAVE_GENERIC_IOMAP.

Note: the use of the internal config variable HAVE_GENERIC_IOMAP, it is
introduced to overcome the limitation of select which will force a
config option to 'y' no matter the dependencies.
The dependencies are moved to the symbol GENERIC_IOMAP and we avoid the
situation where select forces a symbol equals to 'y'.

Build as module only
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To restrict a component build to module-only, qualify its config symbol
with "depends on m".  E.g.:

config FOO
	depends on BAR && m

limits FOO to module (=m) or disabled (=n).