linux-kernel - Re: checkpatch: kstrtol fix

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Date:	Wed, 2 May 2012 09:13:22 -0700
From:	Guenter Roeck <guenter.roeck@...csson.com>
To:	Joe Korty <joe.korty@...r.com>
CC:	Andy Whitcroft <apw@...onical.com>,
	"linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: checkpatch: kstrtol fix

On Wed, 2012-05-02 at 11:10 -0400, Joe Korty wrote:
> kstrtol is a substitute for simple_strtol() only when when second
> arg of simple_strtol() is NULL. For any other value the functionality
> of simple_strtol() cannot be implemented in terms of kstrtol.
> 
> So modify checkpatch.pl so that it prints out the following warning only
> if the second argument is null:
> 
>    WARNING: simple_strtol is obsolete, use kstrtol instead
> 
> Signed-off-by: Joe Korty <joe.korty@...r.com>
> 

I think this would be a bad idea. Most if not all instances in the
kernel (at least all the ones I looked at) use the second argument to
determine if the parameter was actually a number or not, ie it is used
to detect parameter errors. This is exactly the point of using kstrtol()
in the first place. So it _is_ possible, at least in most cases, to
implement the same functionality with kstrtol(). If there _are_ uses of
simple_strtol() where the second argument is not used for error checking
but for some other purpose, I am sure that an alternative solution can
be found which does not require simple_strtol(). Or just live with the
warning for those cases.

Thanks,
Guenter

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