From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Joe Perches Subject: [PATCH] checkpatch: Warn when using extern with function prototypes in .h files Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 19:59:10 -0700 Message-ID: <1374721150.1924.26.camel@joe-AO722> References: <1374602291.3387.17.camel@joe-AO722> <1374716480.1924.18.camel@joe-AO722> <20130725014732.GA10036@order.stressinduktion.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Andy Whitcroft , Hannes Frederic Sowa , Cong Wang , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org To: Andrew Morton Return-path: Received: from perches-mx.perches.com ([206.117.179.246]:36251 "EHLO labridge.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752668Ab3GYC7M (ORCPT ); Wed, 24 Jul 2013 22:59:12 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20130725014732.GA10036@order.stressinduktion.org> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Using the extern keyword on function prototypes is superfluous visual noise so suggest removing it. Using extern can cause unnecessary line wrapping at 80 columns and unnecessarily long multi-line function prototypes. Suggested-by: Hannes Frederic Sowa Signed-off-by: Joe Perches --- On Thu, 2013-07-25 at 03:47 +0200, Hannes Frederic Sowa wrote: > On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 06:41:20PM -0700, Joe Perches wrote: > > On Thu, 2013-07-25 at 01:27 +0000, Cong Wang wrote: > > > On Tue, 23 Jul 2013 at 17:58 GMT, Joe Perches wrote: > > > > Function prototypes don't need to be declared > > > > extern in .h files. It's assumed by the compiler > > > > and is as unnecessary as using auto is when > > > > declaring automatic/local variables in a block. > > > Since we all know this, why bother it? > > If everyone knew this, new ones wouldn't be added. > > But a lot are. > Couldn't checkpatch take care of these? checkpatch doesn't work well for multiple lines so this doesn't work on things like extern unsigned long foo(type bar); but it does for the single line function prototypes. Using --fix removes them. scripts/checkpatch.pl | 10 ++++++++++ 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+) diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl index 6918517..23126d4 100755 --- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl +++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl @@ -3866,6 +3866,16 @@ sub process { } } +# check for new externs in .h files. + if ($realfile =~ /\.h$/ && + $line =~ /^\+\s*(extern\s+)$Type\s*$Ident\s*\(/s) { + if (WARN("AVOID_EXTERNS", + "extern prototypes should be avoided in .h files\n" . $herecurr) && + $fix) { + $fixed[$linenr - 1] =~ s/(.*)\bextern\b\s*(.*)/$1$2/; + } + } + # check for new externs in .c files. if ($realfile =~ /\.c$/ && defined $stat && $stat =~ /^.\s*(?:extern\s+)?$Type\s+($Ident)(\s*)\(/s) -- 1.8.1.2.459.gbcd45b4.dirty