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Message-ID: <20080215182421.GA5593@suse.de>
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:24:21 -0800
From: Greg KH <gregkh@...e.de>
To: Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
Cc: Yi Yang <yi.y.yang@...el.com>, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
davej@...emonkey.org.uk, cpufreq@...ts.linux.org.uk,
linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-acpi@...r.kernel.org,
mingo@...e.hu, torvalds@...ux-foundation.org,
linux-pm@...ts.linux-foundation.org
Subject: Re: [linux-pm] [PATCH 2.6.25-rc1] cpufreq: fix cpufreq policy
refcount imbalance
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:52:51AM -0500, Alan Stern wrote:
> On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, Yi Yang wrote:
>
> > This patch adds kobject_put to balance refcount. I noticed Greg suggests
> > it will fix a power-off issue to remove kobject_get statement block, but i
> > think that isn't the best way because those code block has existed very long
> > and it is helpful because the successive statements are invoking relevant
> > data.
>
> Are you referring to this section of code (before the region affected
> by your patch)?
>
> if (!kobject_get(&data->kobj)) {
> spin_unlock_irqrestore(&cpufreq_driver_lock, flags);
> cpufreq_debug_enable_ratelimit();
> unlock_policy_rwsem_write(cpu);
> return -EFAULT;
> }
>
> Greg is correct that the kobject_get() here is useless and should be
> removed. kobject_get() never returns NULL unless its argument is NULL.
> Since &data->kobj can never be NULL, the "if" test will never fail.
> Hence there's no point in making the test at all.
>
> The fact that a section of code has existed for a long time doesn't
> mean that it is right. :-)
>
> Furthermore, there's no reason to do the kobject_get(). Holding 2
> references to a kobject is no better than holding just 1 reference.
> Assuming you know that the kobject is still registered, then you also
> know that there is already a reference to it. So you have no reason to
> take an additional reference.
There's the additional problem that this second reference count is never
dropped, causing a bug :)
thanks,
greg k-h
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