From: Hollis Blanchard <hollisb@us.ibm.com>
To: "David D. Hagood" <wowbagger@sktc.net>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Style question: Should one check for NULL pointers?
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2003 23:02:33 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <7FD4C648-B354-11D7-9801-000A95A0560C@us.ibm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <3F0DEEA4.5050605@sktc.net>
On Thursday, Jul 10, 2003, at 17:54 US/Central, David D. Hagood wrote:
>
> Now, if you have some function that can return an error code, then
> testing for NULL and returning an error condition is sensible. But if
> you have no way to report the error, then what good is the test?
Then you add the test, fix your interface to be able to report the
error, and update callers as necessary... if your code can fail, you
should be able to report it.
When writing a new function you think returns void, seriously consider
having it return success instead.
--
Hollis Blanchard
IBM Linux Technology Center
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2003-07-11 3:48 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 22+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2003-07-10 20:28 Style question: Should one check for NULL pointers? Alan Stern
2003-07-10 20:52 ` Eli Carter
2003-07-10 22:12 ` H. Peter Anvin
2003-07-11 2:35 ` Alan Stern
2003-07-11 14:29 ` Eli Carter
2003-07-11 15:16 ` Alan Stern
2003-07-12 18:40 ` Horst von Brand
2003-07-13 21:42 ` Alan Stern
2003-07-11 20:33 ` H. Peter Anvin
2003-07-10 22:54 ` David D. Hagood
2003-07-11 4:02 ` Hollis Blanchard [this message]
2003-07-11 4:38 ` Hua Zhong
2003-07-11 14:13 ` David D. Hagood
2003-07-11 14:52 ` Richard B. Johnson
2003-07-11 15:39 ` Alan Stern
2003-07-11 19:32 ` Horst von Brand
2003-07-11 20:36 ` H. Peter Anvin
2003-07-11 21:21 ` Alan Stern
2003-07-13 22:53 ` Ingo Oeser
[not found] <7QmZ.5RP.17@gated-at.bofh.it>
2003-07-10 21:00 ` Dennis Bliefernicht
2003-07-10 22:13 ` H. Peter Anvin
2003-07-10 22:28 ` Larry McVoy
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