Re: [PATCH] x86/syscalls: Mark expected switch fall-throughs

From: "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <garsilva@embeddedor.com>
To: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
	x86@kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] x86/syscalls: Mark expected switch fall-throughs
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2017 12:05:12 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20171128120512.Horde.1mz61Up1PsNtyHbrjWmK8L7@gator4166.hostgator.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1711281448520.1723@nanos>

Quoting Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>:

> On Mon, 27 Nov 2017, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
>
>> In preparation to enabling -Wimplicit-fallthrough, mark switch cases
>> where we are expecting to fall through.
>
>>  		case 0:
>>  			if (!n--) break;
>>  			*args++ = regs->bx;
>> +			/* fall through */
>
> And these gazillions of pointless comments help enabling of
> -Wimplicit-fallthrough in which way?
>

The -Wimplicit-fallthrough option was added to GCC 7. We want to add  
that option to the top-level Makefile so we can have the compiler help  
us not make mistakes as missing "break"s or "continue"s. This also  
documents the intention for humans and provides a way for analyzers to  
report issues or ignore False Positives.

So prior to adding such option to the Makefile, we have to properly  
add a code comment wherever the code is intended to fall through.

During the process of placing these comments I have identified actual  
bugs (missing "break"s/"continue"s) in a variety of components in the  
kernel, so I think this effort is valuable. Lastly, such a simple  
comment in the code can save a person plenty of time during a code  
review.

Thanks
--
Gustavo A. R. Silva