If I have a blank space in front of the return parameter and function name, spatch gets confused and rejects the file. I've attached a test.c and my nv_printf.cocci. If I remove the blank space before "NV_STATUS" and "mycrazyfunc", everything works. But with the blank space, it causes this error: ERROR-RECOV: found sync '}' at line 14 parsing pass2: try again ERROR-RECOV: found sync '}' at line 14 parsing pass3: try again ERROR-RECOV: found sync '}' at line 14 parse error = File "/home/ttabi/test.c", line 1, column 1, charpos = 1 around = 'NV_STATUS', whole content = NV_STATUS badcount: 13 BAD:!!!!! NV_STATUS bad: mycrazyfunc bad: (