Re: [dmidecode] [PATCH] dmidecode: Add option to filter output based upon handle

[Jean Delvare]

On Fri, 29 Jun 2018 20:10:38 +0000, Elliott, Robert (Persistent Memory) wrote:
> > > The use of plural ("entries") is confusing because each handle number
> > > must be unique according to the SMBIOS specification.  
> > 
> > OK. Wasn't sure handles were unique.  The code works either way.
> > 
> > I'll change to the singular form here and the other locations.  
> 
> That'll be true for well-behaved system firmware, and it is reasonable
> for the help messages to be worded based on that understanding.
> 
> If system firmware messes that up, though (hopefully only in pre-production
> code), it's helpful for dmidecode to print all of the matching structures.

Agreed.

Last year, as part of a SUSE Hackweek, I looked into extending
dmidecode to have an SMBIOS standard conformance checking mode [1].
This is still only a prototype and it did not cover the full list of
constraints, so I never published my work, but if there is an interest
in this, I could spend some time polishing the patch set and post it.
The code does not check for handle uniqueness yet, but that would be
easy to implement.

[1] https://hackweek.suse.com/17/projects/dmi-table-conformance-checker

-- 
Jean Delvare
SUSE L3 Support