Chapter 7 (Centralized exiting of functions) of the coding style documentation is unclear at times, and lacks some information (such as the possibility to indent labels with a single space.) Clarify and complete it. Signed-off-by: Jean Delvare <jdelvare@xxxxxxx> Cc: Markus Elfring <elfring@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@xxxxxxx> --- Documentation/CodingStyle | 25 +++++++++++++++++++------ 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) --- linux-4.7-rc7.orig/Documentation/CodingStyle 2016-07-04 08:01:00.000000000 +0200 +++ linux-4.7-rc7/Documentation/CodingStyle 2016-07-25 14:25:12.498328631 +0200 @@ -396,9 +396,13 @@ locations and some common work such as c cleanup needed then just return directly. Choose label names which say what the goto does or why the goto exists. An -example of a good name could be "out_buffer:" if the goto frees "buffer". Avoid -using GW-BASIC names like "err1:" and "err2:". Also don't name them after the -goto location like "err_kmalloc_failed:" +example of a good name could be "out_free_buffer:" if the goto frees "buffer". +Avoid using GW-BASIC names like "err1:" and "err2:", as you would have to +renumber them if you ever add or remove exit paths, and they make correctness +difficult to verify anyway. + +It is advised to indent labels with a single space (not tab), so that +"diff -p" does not confuse labels with functions. The rationale for using gotos is: @@ -425,20 +429,29 @@ The rationale for using gotos is: goto out_buffer; } ... - out_buffer: + out_free_buffer: kfree(buffer); return result; } A common type of bug to be aware of is "one err bugs" which look like this: - err: + err: kfree(foo->bar); kfree(foo); return ret; The bug in this code is that on some exit paths "foo" is NULL. Normally the -fix for this is to split it up into two error labels "err_bar:" and "err_foo:". +fix for this is to split it up into two error labels "err_free_bar:" and +"err_free_foo:": + + err_free_bar: + kfree(foo->bar); + err_free_foo: + kfree(foo); + return ret; + +Ideally you should simulate errors to test all exit paths. Chapter 8: Commenting -- Jean Delvare SUSE L3 Support -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html