Re: [PATCH] checkpatch.pl: Add warning for harmful goto labels

From: "L. Alberto Giménez" <agimenez@sysvalve.es>
To: Richard Weinberger <richard.weinberger@gmail.com>
Cc: LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Andy Whitcroft <apw@canonical.com>, Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] checkpatch.pl: Add warning for harmful goto labels
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2015 23:06:56 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20150321220655.GA14583@bart.evergreen.loc> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAFLxGvy7mYEPm5RYCLk1Cmr=oxzaZqoQS3niKXPk65Cyu4RFkg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 10:40:46PM +0100, Richard Weinberger wrote:
> Huh? Since when?

There are a lot of cases where a too generic goto label for cleanup
causes a bug or makes debugging harder.

Last time was this G+ post, by Dan Carpenter:

https://plus.google.com/106378716002406849458/posts/DfuAkt8szf2

> rw@azrael:~/linux (for-v4.1/uml_misc $)> git grep -e "goto out;" | wc -l
> 26667
> rw@azrael:~/linux (for-v4.1/uml_misc $)> git grep -e "goto fail;" | wc -l
> 3733

If something is already in the kernel code, does that mean that it's OK?
I honestly don't think so, and I think that goto labels for cleanup exit
paths should be a little more descriptive.

> What is next? Variable name "i" considered harmful?

No one complained about that so far. I might add that to checkpatch.pl
if needed.

> Can we please stop this nonsense.

It's just a proposal for a warning. If it is really not needed, it won't
be applied and life will go on :)

-- 
L. Alberto Giménez
GnuPG key ID 0xDD4E27AB