On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 10:06:54PM +0000, Gary R Hook wrote: > On 1/22/19 9:14 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > > When calling debugfs functions, there is no need to ever check the > > return value. The function can work or not, but the code logic should > > never do something different based on this. > > Stupid question(s) time. > > If we don't care about failures (because the subsystem handles them > without our involvement) why do these functions even have return values? > Why haven't they been changed to void so that they reflect the current > style of intended use?
Because on "normal" operations, you use the return value for something (i.e. a parent directory to pass to other functions, or a value so you can remove the file later). > I realize I'm old fashioned, but if a failure occurs, I've always been > of a mind to kick out and not try to do any further work. But debugfs is > to be treated as an exception to that paradigm? Carry on, ignore errors, > don't worry about it? Yes, that is the case here, it goes against what everyone normally thinks about kernel development :) thanks, greg k-h