Hi Tomasz,
On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 05:31:33PM +0900, Tomasz Figa wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 5:21 PM, Sakari Ailus <sakari.ai...@iki.fi> wrote:
> >> >> + ret = v4l2_async_notifier_register(&cio2->v4l2_dev,
> >> >> &cio2->notifier);
> >> >> + if (ret) {
> >> >> + cio2->notifier.num_subdevs = 0;
> >> >
> >> > No need to assign num_subdevs as 0.
> >> >
> >> > [YZ] _notifier_exit() will call _unregister() if this is not 0.
> >>
> >> You shouldn't call _exit() if _init() failed. I noticed that many
> >> error paths in your code does this. Please fix it.
> >
> > In general most functions that initialise and clean up something are
> > implemented so that the cleanup function can be called without calling the
> > corresponding init function. This eases driver implementation by reducing
> > complexity in error paths that are difficult to implement and test to begin
> > with, so I don't see anything wrong with that, quite the contrary.
> >
> > I.e. in this case you should call v4l2_async_notifier_unregister() without
> > checking the number of async sub-devices.
> >
> > There are exceptions to that though; not all the framework functions behave
> > this way. Of kernel APIs, e.g. kmalloc() and kfree() do this --- you can
> > pass a NULL pointer to kfree() and it does nothing.
>
> I'd argue that most of the cleanup paths I've seen in the kernel are
> the opposite. If you properly check for errors in your code, it's
> actually very unlikely that you need to call a cleanup function
> without the init function called... That said, I've seen the pattern
> you describe too, so probably either there is no strict rule or it's
> not strictly enforced. (Still, judging by
> https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.10/process/coding-style.html#centralized-exiting-of-functions,
> which mentions "one err bugs" and suggests "to split it up into two
> error labels", the pattern I'm arguing for might be the recommended
> default.)
I don't really see a problem here; the another label in the example is
needed to avoid referencing a NULL pointer. If there's a reason to add a
label, then a label is just added. :-)
You could check foo as well under a single label. I'd say that approach
generally scales better: if you can handle a difference in error handling
locally in error handling code, this is easier to maintain and easier to
get right in complex error handling code (whereas the example is very
simple); spreading that knowledge over much of the function has the
opposite effect: it's easy to e.g. to go to a wrong label and there have
been plenty of such bugs in the past.
I think we're getting to fine details here. :-)
--
Kind regards,
Sakari Ailus
e-mail: sakari.ai...@iki.fi XMPP: sai...@retiisi.org.uk
