I've just found how easy it is to accidentally register a sysdev_driver for two different classes. When this happens, bad things happen as the sysdev_driver structure keeps has the list entry for the driver registration.
The following patch makes a WARN_ON() if this happens, although I think BUG_ON or returning -EAGAIN could also be valid responses to this. Index: linux-2.6.24-quilt5/drivers/base/sys.c =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.24-quilt5.orig/drivers/base/sys.c +++ linux-2.6.24-quilt5/drivers/base/sys.c @@ -169,6 +169,11 @@ int sysdev_driver_register(struct sysdev { int err = 0; + /* Check whether this driver has already been added to a class. */ + + WARN_ON(drv->entry.next != drv->entry.prev); + WARN_ON(drv->entry.next != NULL); + mutex_lock(&sysdev_drivers_lock); if (cls && kset_get(&cls->kset)) { list_add_tail(&drv->entry, &cls->drivers); My first question is, whether people think that this check is a sane and worthwhile thing to do. The second question is, should this be BUG_ON, WARN_ON or return an error (with optional print)? And my third question is that a number of drivers are assuming an NULL initialised 'struct list_head' is a valid setup for an include/linux/list.h list. Is there a case of using LIST_HEAD_INIT() on all sysdev driver structures? If not, should we be using INIT_LIST_HEAD() in sysdev_driver_register(). The header is not clear on what should be done. -- Ben -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/