linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/1] checkpatch.pl: thou shalt not use () or (...) in function declarations

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Message-ID: <20120322200144.GF19970@pcarmody2.research.nokia.com>
Date:	Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:01:44 +0200
From:	Phil Carmody <ext-phil.2.carmody@...ia.com>
To:	ext Peter Seebach <peter.seebach@...driver.com>
Cc:	"ext H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Jiri Slaby <jslaby@...e.cz>,
	apw@...onical.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/1] checkpatch.pl: thou shalt not use () or (...) in
 function declarations

On 22/03/12 14:10 -0500, ext Peter Seebach wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:48:02 +0200
> Phil Carmody <ext-phil.2.carmody@...ia.com> wrote:
> 
> > While empty paramter lists in function definitions are not technically
> > wrong, those situations are rare enough that it's worth encouraging
> > people towards a more uniform, always unambiguous, style.
> 
> Typo here ("paramter").
> 
> You don't need to check for (...).  That doesn't actually exist, and
> gcc rejects it (as it should).  The description of () as meaning (...)
> is a (slight) oversimplification.

Thanks, and thanks, yup. I just got carried away by HPA's wonderful tale, 
I took it too literally.

>  As to the () case:
> 
> The rules here are complicated.  Complicated enough that I don't even
> TRY to remember them.  Fundamentally, f() is equivalent to either
> f(void) or f(please do unpleasant things to me with railroad spikes).
> I would definitely endorse a policy discouraging its use.

It appears we have quite broad agreement, it's just the details that
need to be polished.

> I can only think of one exception, and it's inapplicable.  The
> exception:  Imagine that you wish to write a wrapper for a function
> like scandir, which takes a function pointer as an argument, and you
> wish the wrapper to work on two systems where the arguments passed to
> the function pointer are of different types, but you yourself will
> never actually see or care about the arguments; you just want to pass
> the function pointer around.  Then it could make sense to declare the
> argument as int (*compar)().  But that's a once-a-lifetime use case,
> give or take.

Maybe WG14 should introduce (...) for just that case! :-D

Cheers for your input Seebs,
Phil
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