Another option would be to add a comment to rpc_run_task() to say that it returns error pointers on error. Otherwise the callers will start checking for NULL because you can't tell from the context. regards, dan carpenter -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-nfs" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html