bench: Update help functions in bench and bench_internal #1811

1. 
   kevkevinpal commented at 1:01 pm on January 27, 2026: contributor

   Motivation

   This change is motivated by #1793#pullrequestreview-3644885897

   While aligning implementation across all benchmarks, argv could be passed to the help() in bench.c and bench_internal.c.

   Description

   In the bench and bench_internal help functions argv was not being passed. In this change, we pass in argv and use it in the help text.

2. in src/bench.c:15 in 58ee45b13d

   11@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
   12 #include "util.h"
   13 #include "bench.h"
   14 
   15-static void help(int default_iters) {
   16+static void help(char **argv, int default_iters) {
   

   ---

   ---

   

   real-or-random commented at 8:43 am on January 30, 2026:

   nit: I know this uses only argv[0], but still, this interface seems a bit cursed because you can’t really use argv without argc. Either you pass both argc and argv (like in have_flag), or you simply only argv[0].

   ---

   

   kevkevinpal commented at 10:34 pm on February 3, 2026:

   Thanks for the suggestion

   I went ahead and did that in 5fb24a3

   This modifies the help() functions in bench.c, bench_ecmult.c and bench_internal.c

   ---

   

   real-or-random commented at 2:00 pm on February 6, 2026:

   Thanks for the update. Now that I see this variant, I tend to think that the variant where only argv[0] is passed to help() is less cluttered. I mean all of these help functions only need argv[0] (and I see no reason why they should require the remaining args in the future). Sorry for being specific only now…

   Also, can you squash after you make this change?

   ---

   

   kevkevinpal commented at 4:52 pm on February 6, 2026:

   No problem and sorry about that, I’ve updated and squashed in e1598c7

   Now we just have a const char *executable_path that we use. Let me know if that looks good!

   Thanks for the review!

3. real-or-random added the label tweak/refactor on Jan 30, 2026
4. real-or-random added the label user-documentation on Jan 30, 2026
5. kevkevinpal force-pushed on Feb 3, 2026
6. kevkevinpal force-pushed on Feb 6, 2026
7. real-or-random approved
8. 
   real-or-random commented at 7:40 pm on February 6, 2026: contributor

   ACK e1598c7ff2ec0ed938c62da96e5aa4a666dd129c
9. 
   real-or-random commented at 7:40 pm on February 6, 2026: contributor

   cc @hebasto
10. in src/bench.c:39 in e1598c7ff2

    35@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ static void help(int default_iters) {
    36     printf("The default number of iterations for each benchmark is %d. This can be\n", default_iters);
    37     printf("customized using the SECP256K1_BENCH_ITERS environment variable.\n");
    38     printf("\n");
    39-    printf("Usage: ./bench [args]\n");
    40+    printf("Usage: %s <help|ecdsa|ecdsa_sign|ecdsa_verify|ec|ec_keygen>\n", executable_path);
    

    ---

    ---

    

    hebasto commented at 6:51 am on February 7, 2026:

    With optional modules enabled, the list of arguments becomes inconsistent with the descriptions below, which creates confusion. I think we should leave “[args]” as a placeholder accompanied by the explanatory list. Regardless of the approach, the help output should be consistent across all benchmark binaries.

    ---

    

    kevkevinpal commented at 0:18 am on February 10, 2026:

    Thanks for the review, that is a fair point. I’ve updated the 3 benches to use [args] instead in c49c9be
11. hebasto approved
12. 
    hebasto commented at 6:51 am on February 7, 2026: member

    ACK e1598c7ff2ec0ed938c62da96e5aa4a666dd129c, tested on Fedora 43.
13. bench: Update help functions in bench and bench_internal

    In the bench and bench_internal help functions argv was not being
    passed, in this change we pass in argv[0] and use it in the help text.
    
    Additionally instead of passing all of argv in bench_ecmult we now
    just pass argv[0] and is used as the executable_path variable.

    c49c9be504
14. kevkevinpal force-pushed on Feb 10, 2026

Contributors
kevkevinpal real-or-random hebasto

Labels
user-documentation tweak/refactor