From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751364AbaJANBl (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Oct 2014 09:01:41 -0400 Received: from mout.web.de ([212.227.15.4]:64407 "EHLO mout.web.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751181AbaJANBk (ORCPT ); Wed, 1 Oct 2014 09:01:40 -0400 Message-ID: <542BFB2C.5070609@users.sourceforge.net> Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:01:32 +0200 From: SF Markus Elfring User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:31.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/31.1.2 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Stephen Rothwell CC: Coccinelle , kernel-janitors@vger.kernel.org, Michal Marek , Chi Pham , Fabian Frederick , Joe Perches Subject: Re: [PATCH with Coccinelle?] Deletion of unnecessary checks before specific function calls References: <5307CAA2.8060406@users.sourceforge.net> <530A086E.8010901@users.sourceforge.net> <530A72AA.3000601@users.sourceforge.net> <530B5FB6.6010207@users.sourceforge.net> <530C5E18.1020800@users.sourceforge.net> <530CD2C4.4050903@users.sourceforge.net> <530CF8FF.8080600@users.sourceforge.net> <530DD06F.4090703@users.sourceforge.net> <5317A59D.4@users.sourceforge.net> In-Reply-To: <5317A59D.4@users.sourceforge.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:KevSVkWmkZQ/DBuwXqv4HU0+sWwY8SuqXzq43k4f11R8BVEe6cz uWns3jhSnirqDpP85OWMzvs8SyofsbPfC3b4A2bJrnBSVwW7I3x96ErNoB0XyyIklGvRQ6x SD4dr1exv7JGhteUqJ9o06ZmZt5PZYtQNgfltYLGjZRr2S/5JtlBdSr28H2x8dqGC+qpcEE C3B7DZDwFLbZvZIV/fCgQ== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1; Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org >> If you are convinced that dropping the null tests is a good idea, then you >> can submit the patch that makes the change to the relevant maintainers and >> mailing lists. Hello, A couple of functions perform input parameter validation before their implementations will try further actions with side effects. Some calling functions perform similar safety checks. Functions which release a system resource are occasionally documented in the way that they tolerate the passing of a null pointer for example. I do not see a need because of this fact that a function caller repeats a corresponding check. Now I would like to propose such a change again. 1. Extension of the infrastructure for the analysis tool "coccicheck" Semantic patch patterns can help to identify update candidates also in the Linux source file hierarchy. https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git/tree/scripts/coccinelle?id=79f0345fefaafb7cde301a830471edd21a37989b Would you like to reconsider an approach which was discussed with a subject like "scripts/coccinelle/free: Delete NULL test before freeing functions?" a while ago? https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/8/9/36 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/linux.kernel/rIWfYsRRW6I/cTs6y0STf2cJ 2. Clarification for some automated update suggestions My source code search approach found 227 functions with the help of the software "Coccinelle 1.0.0-rc22" at least which might need another review and corresponding corrections for Linux 3.16.3. Further software development will point out even more potentially open issues. Regards, Markus