Cregit-Linux: how code gets into the kernel

  • The linked site contains a token-based (rather than line-based) git "blame" annotation view for Linux kernel releases, i.e. it allows you to discover which commit added a particular token--where "a token is what the C syntax considers a token".

    An advantage of a per-token commit attribution view is you don't need to transit through the history of an entire line.

    Cregit is the tool used to produce the per-token view: https://github.com/cregit/cregit

    I encountered Cregit recently while doing some "code history spelunking/archaeology" and thought it seemed pretty nifty.

    Decided to share the link as there have been a couple of recent HN threads which included discussion about the poor granularity of line-based git "blame" functionality.

    The most recent kernel version on the site is v6.13: https://cregit.linuxsources.org/code/6.13/

    Unfortunately, the tool itself seems not to be under active development, the most recently modified branch is from 2 years ago & the main branch was last modified 6 years ago: https://github.com/cregit/cregit/tree/newinter

  • Has anyone managed to build cregit [1] recently?

    [1] https://github.com/cregit/cregit