linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] Illustration of warning explosion silliness

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Message-ID: <451B4D58.9070401@garzik.org>
Date:	Thu, 28 Sep 2006 00:19:36 -0400
From:	Jeff Garzik <jeff@...zik.org>
To:	Andrew Morton <akpm@...l.org>
CC:	linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org, Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Illustration of warning explosion silliness

Andrew Morton wrote:
> And it's not sufficient to say "gee, I can't think of any reason why this
> handler would return an error, so I'll design its callers to assume that". 
> It is _much_ better to design the callers to assume that callees _can_
> fail, and to stick the `return 0;' into the terminal callee.  Because
> things can change.

huh?  You're going off on a tangent.  I agree with the above, just like 
I already agreed that SCSI needs better error checking.

You're ignoring the API issue at hand.  Let me say it again for the 
cheap seats:  "search"  You search a list, and stick a pointer somewhere 
when found.  No hardware touched.  No allocations.  Real world.  There 
is an example of usage in the kernel today.

Yes, SCSI needs better error checking.  Yes, device_for_each_child() 
actors _may_ return errors.  No, that doesn't imply 
device_for_each_child() actors must be FORCED BY DESIGN to return error 
codes.  It's just walking a list.  The current implementation and API is 
fine... save for the "__must_check" marker itself.  The actor CAN return 
an error code via the current API.

CAN, not MUST.  (using RFC language)

	Jeff

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