linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] timers, pointers to functions and type safety

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Date:	Wed, 6 Dec 2006 00:24:03 +0000
From:	Al Viro <viro@....linux.org.uk>
To:	David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
Cc:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Matthew Wilcox <matthew@....cx>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>, linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] timers, pointers to functions and type safety

On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 12:22:44PM +0000, David Howells wrote:
> Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu> wrote:
> 
> > the question is: which is more important, the type safety of a 
> > container_of() [or type cast], which if we get it wrong produces a 
> > /very/ trivial crash that is trivial to fix

The hell it is.  You get wrong fields of a big struct read and modified.
Silently.

Besides, I can show you fsckloads of cases when we do *NOT* pass a
pointer to struct the timer is embedded into.  Some of them called directly
(and no, the thing they get as argument doesn't point to anything that
would contain a timer_list).

> > structure size all around the kernel? I believe the latter is more 
> > important.
> 
> Indeed yes.

Guys, please, look at actual users of that stuff.
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