Missing zephyr.dts source/origin comments in NCS flavor of zephyr

[xmoex]

Situation

When using vanilla zephyr I get a very verbose generated zephyr.dts file where every line is annotated with the line's origin like the following:

/dts-v1/;

/* node '/' defined in zephyr/dts/common/skeleton.dtsi:9 */
/ {
	model = "Company Product MCU Application";	/* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:7 */
	compatible = "companc,product-app";		/* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:8 */
	#address-cells = < 0x1 >;			/* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:10 */
	#size-cells = < 0x1 >;				/* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:11 */

	/* node '/chosen' defined in zephyr/dts/common/skeleton.dtsi:12 */
	chosen {
		zephyr,entropy = &rng;            /* in zephyr/dts/arm/mcu_vendor/xxx/mcu.dtsi:27 */
		zephyr,flash-controller = &flash; /* in zephyr/dts/arm/mcu_vendor/xxx/mcu.dtsi:28 */
		zephyr,console = &usart1;         /* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:14 */
		zephyr,shell-uart = &usart1;      /* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:15 */
		zephyr,sram = &sram0;             /* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:16 */
		zephyr,flash = &flash0;           /* in zephyr/samples/hello_world/boards/company/product/product_mcu.dts:17 */
	};
	
...

However, when using NCS flavor of zephyr I get:

/dts-v1/;

/ {
	model = "Company Product MCU Application";
	compatible = "companc,product-app";
	#address-cells = < 0x1 >;
	#size-cells = < 0x1 >;

	chosen {
		zephyr,entropy = &rng;
		zephyr,flash-controller = &flash;
		zephyr,console = &usart1;
		zephyr,shell-uart = &usart1;
		zephyr,sram = &sram0;
		zephyr,flash = &flash0;
	};
	
...

instead.

Question

How can I have those source/origin comments in my generated zephyr.dts using NCS?

[Michal]

Hello again,

Actually, I do get the same annotations in NCS as you did only in vanilla zephyr.

I have tested that on NCS 3.1.1

Best regards,

Michal

[xmoex]

Hi Michal ,

out of curiosity I quickly installed NCS 3.1.1 via nrfutil and I can verify I see those comments too!

I will try again with v3.0.0 which is what I'm using at work.

[xmoex]

OK, quick test again here:

• same process
• NCS v3.0.0
• no comments!

I will try other NCS versions to see where the behavior changed. Maybe it wasn't always there in vanilla zephyr and has just recently been incorporated in NCS' flavor of zephyr?

[Michal]

I have gotten information on where and when exactly it was changed:

Original PR (closed without being merged): https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/pull/80698

Updated PR which got merged in May: https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr/pull/89410

As NCS Zephyr version is lagging behind, that makes sense why was it added only quite recently (and the upstream Zephyr commit isn't very old either).

Best regards,

Michal

[infernosnail]

I appreciate the debate about the missing'source/origin' comments in the NCS flavor of Zephyr. Complete documentation is crucial for sprunki game developers since it has a substantial impact on the debugging process and overall efficiency. In my most recent project with Zephyr, I had similar issues with poor documentation on device tree bindings, which impacted our integration timetable. Perhaps providing examples of where these comments are very powerful can assist others understand their significance.