linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/1] mm: make read-only accessors take const pointer parameters

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Message-ID: <1303299865.2700.25.camel@localhost>
Date:	Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:44:25 +0300
From:	Artem Bityutskiy <dedekind1@...il.com>
To:	Michal Nazarewicz <mina86@...a86.com>
Cc:	Andrea Arcangeli <aarcange@...hat.com>,
	Phil Carmody <ext-phil.2.carmody@...ia.com>,
	akpm@...ux-foundation.org, cl@...ux-foundation.org,
	linux-mm@...ck.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/1] mm: make read-only accessors take const pointer
 parameters

On Wed, 2011-04-20 at 13:20 +0200, Michal Nazarewicz wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:28:37 +0200, Artem Bityutskiy <dedekind1@...il.com>  
> wrote:
> > I think it is good when small core functions like this are strict and
> > use 'const' whenever possible, even though 'const' is so imperfect in C.
> >
> > Let me give an example from my own experience. I was writing code which
> > was using the kernel RB trees, and I was trying to be strict and use
> > 'const' whenever possible. But because the core functions like 'rb_next'
> > do not have 'const' modifier, I could not use const in many many places
> > of my code, because gcc was yelling. And I was not very enthusiastic to
> > touch the RB-tree code that time.
> 
> The problem is that you end up with two sets of functions (one taking const
> another taking non-const), a bunch of macros or a function that takes const
> but returns non-const.  If we settle on anything I would probably vote for
> the last option but the all are far from ideal.

I think it is fine to take const and return non-const. Yes, it is not
beautiful, but we could live with this.

-- 
Best Regards,
Artem Bityutskiy (Артём Битюцкий)

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