diff --git a/include/linux/compiler.h b/include/linux/compiler.h
index ee7239e..64fdfe1 100644
--- a/include/linux/compiler.h
+++ b/include/linux/compiler.h
@@ -323,9 +323,18 @@
 #endif
 #ifndef __compiletime_error
 # define __compiletime_error(message)
-# define __compiletime_error_fallback(condition) \
+/*
+ * Sparse complains of variable sized arrays due to the temporary variable in
+ * __compiletime_assert. Unfortunately we can't just expand it out to make
+ * sparse see a constant array size without breaking compiletime_assert on old
+ * versions of GCC (e.g. 4.2.4), so hide the array from sparse altogether.
+ */
+# ifndef __CHECKER__
+#  define __compiletime_error_fallback(condition) \
 	do { ((void)sizeof(char[1 - 2 * condition])); } while (0)
-#else
+# endif
+#endif
+#ifndef __compiletime_error_fallback
 # define __compiletime_error_fallback(condition) do { } while (0)
 #endif