netdev - Re: [patch] checkpatch: remove the ether_addr

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Date:	Fri, 3 Oct 2014 17:14:13 +0200 (CEST)
From:	Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@...6.fr>
To:	Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
cc:	Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@...cle.com>,
	Andy Whitcroft <apw@...onical.com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	netdev@...r.kernel.org, kernel-janitors@...r.kernel.org,
	gregkh@...uxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [patch] checkpatch: remove the ether_addr_copy warning



On Fri, 3 Oct 2014, Joe Perches wrote:

> On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 16:30 +0200, Julia Lawall wrote:
> > On Fri, 3 Oct 2014, Joe Perches wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2014-10-03 at 12:35 +0300, Dan Carpenter wrote:
> > > > Most people sending checkpatch.pl fixes don't know how to verify the
> > > > alignment.  This checkpatch warning just encourages newbies to try
> > > > introduce bugs.  Patch submitters tell us that they just sed the code
> > > > and it's the job for the maintainer to check that it's correct.
> > >
> > > I haven't seen many instances of bad patch submittals
> > > on netdev.  Is this mostly an issue for staging?
> > >
> > > Maybe a downgrade to CHK requiring --strict is OK.
> []
> > I think it is too bad to have a piece of knowledge that was apparent be
> > made more obscure.  Why not just change the checkpatch warning to make
> > more explicit that a lot of expertise is required to make the change?
>
> Any wordsmithing appreciated.  Maybe something like:
>
> from: Prefer ether_addr_copy() over memcpy() if the Ethernet addresses are __aligned(2)
> to: Where both Ethernet addresses are guaranteed to be __aligned(2), prefer ether_addr_copy() over memcpy()
>
> That won't stop people from blindly following any message.

Perhaps add: Note that checking whether the addresses are aligned may
require knowing properties of all possible architectures on which the code
may be executed.  Make this change only if you have this information.

julia
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