linux-kernel - [PATCH v2 0/2] checkpatch: add checks incorrectly initialized pointers with _

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Message-Id: <20251024-aheev-checkpatch-uninitialized-free-v2-0-16c0900e8130@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2025 22:59:14 +0530
From: Ally Heev <allyheev@...il.com>
To: Dwaipayan Ray <dwaipayanray1@...il.com>, 
 Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@...il.com>, Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>, 
 Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>, Andy Whitcroft <apw@...onical.com>
Cc: workflows@...r.kernel.org, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, 
 linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@...aro.org>, 
 David Hunter <david.hunter.linux@...il.com>, 
 Shuah Khan <skhan@...uxfoundation.org>, Viresh Kumar <vireshk@...nel.org>, 
 Nishanth Menon <nm@...com>, Stephen Boyd <sboyd@...nel.org>, 
 linux-pm <linux-pm@...r.kernel.org>, dan.j.williams@...el.com, 
 Ally Heev <allyheev@...il.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2 0/2] checkpatch: add checks incorrectly initialized
 pointers with __free attr

Badly initialized pointers with __free attr can
cause cleanup issues. So,

Adding checks for
- uninitialized pointers
- initialized pointers with NULL

Testing:
ran checkpatch.pl before and after the change on 
crypto/asymmetric_keys/x509_public_key.c, which has
both initialized with NULL and uninitialized pointers

---
Changes in v2:
- change cover letter and title to reflect new changes
- fix regex to handle multiple declarations in a single line case
- convert WARN to ERROR for uninitialized pointers
- add a new WARN for pointers initialized with NULL 
- NOTE: tried handling multiple declarations on a single line by splitting
        them and matching the parts with regex, but, it turned out to be 
	complex and overkill. Moreover, multi-line declarations pose a threat
- Link to v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20251021-aheev-checkpatch-uninitialized-free-v1-1-18fb01bc6a7a@gmail.com

---
Ally Heev (2):
      checkpatch: add uninitialized pointer with __free attribute check
      add check for pointers with __free attribute initialized to NULL

 Documentation/dev-tools/checkpatch.rst | 11 +++++++++++
 scripts/checkpatch.pl                  | 13 +++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 24 insertions(+)
---
base-commit: 6548d364a3e850326831799d7e3ea2d7bb97ba08
change-id: 20251021-aheev-checkpatch-uninitialized-free-5c39f75e10a1

Best regards,
-- 
Ally Heev <allyheev@...il.com>