linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] add check for pointers with _

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Message-ID: <aP8CxkXYAitKB3vx@stanley.mountain>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2025 08:27:34 +0300
From: Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@...aro.org>
To: ally heev <allyheev@...il.com>
Cc: 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>, workflows@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.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
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] add check for pointers with __free attribute
 initialized to NULL

On Sat, Oct 25, 2025 at 11:53:56AM +0530, ally heev wrote:
> On Fri, 2025-10-24 at 21:08 +0300, Dan Carpenter wrote:
> > On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 10:59:16PM +0530, Ally Heev wrote:
> > > pointers with __free attribute initialized to NULL
> > > pose potential cleanup issues [1] when a function uses
> > > interdependent variables with cleanup attributes
> > > 
> > > Link: https://docs.kernel.org/core-api/cleanup.html [1]
> > > Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/68f7b830ec21a_10e910070@dwillia2-mobl4.notmuch/
> > > Suggested-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
> > > Signed-off-by: Ally Heev <allyheev@...il.com>
> > > ---
> > 
> > I don't think this patch is a good idea...  There are two issues to
> > consider 1) The absolute number over warnings.  500+ is too high.
> > 2) The ratio of bugs to false positives and we don't have any data on
> > that but I bet it's low.  It needs to be at least 5%.  For anything
> > lower than that, you're better off just reviewing code at random
> > instead of looking through warnings.
> > 
> > regards,
> > dan carpenter
> 
> makes sense
> 
> General question about the process for my understanding:
> Is checkpatch run on full tree by CI or someone and results reported
> regularly ?

Newbies run it regularly.  Otherwise it gets run on subsystem CIs and
the zero-day bot runs it on new patches but it will report the old
warnings as well under the "Old warnings" section.

> My understanding was that we would run it only on patches
> before submitting them Or we just run it on full tree before adding
> new checks to understand if they are catching real issues

Eventually someone will look at all the warnings.  And probably it's
going to be a newbie and so we need to be careful with warning where
newbies might introduce bugs with their changes.

regards,
dan carpenter