Documentation/kbuild: Document COMPILE_TEST dependencies

Document best practises for using COMPILE_TEST dependencies.

Signed-off-by: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@glider.be>
Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 11 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.rst b/Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.rst
index 1cf1aebdd6cd..1b4875f04e13 100644
--- a/Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.rst
+++ b/Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.rst
@@ -553,6 +553,17 @@ with "depends on m".  E.g.::
 
 limits FOO to module (=m) or disabled (=n).
 
+Compile-testing
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+If a config symbol has a dependency, but the code controlled by the config
+symbol can still be compiled if the dependency is not met, it is encouraged to
+increase build coverage by adding an "|| COMPILE_TEST" clause to the
+dependency. This is especially useful for drivers for more exotic hardware, as
+it allows continuous-integration systems to compile-test the code on a more
+common system, and detect bugs that way.
+Note that compile-tested code should avoid crashing when run on a system where
+the dependency is not met.
+
 Kconfig recursive dependency limitations
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~