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author | Pekka J Enberg <penberg@cs.Helsinki.FI> | 2005-09-16 19:28:11 -0700 |
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committer | Linus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org> | 2005-09-17 11:50:02 -0700 |
commit | af4e5a218e18ad588d60a4f9d6f8fb5db1a32587 (patch) | |
tree | 39f6737bb96998199144382cdb4eb867be180873 /Documentation | |
parent | f647e08a55d2c88c4e7ab17a0a8e3fcf568fbc65 (diff) | |
download | linux-stable-af4e5a218e18ad588d60a4f9d6f8fb5db1a32587.tar.gz linux-stable-af4e5a218e18ad588d60a4f9d6f8fb5db1a32587.tar.bz2 linux-stable-af4e5a218e18ad588d60a4f9d6f8fb5db1a32587.zip |
[PATCH] CodingStyle: memory allocation
This patch adds a new chapter on memory allocation to
Documentation/CodingStyle.
Signed-off-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/CodingStyle | 21 |
1 files changed, 20 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/CodingStyle b/Documentation/CodingStyle index 22e5f9036f3c..eb7db3c19227 100644 --- a/Documentation/CodingStyle +++ b/Documentation/CodingStyle @@ -410,7 +410,26 @@ Kernel messages do not have to be terminated with a period. Printing numbers in parentheses (%d) adds no value and should be avoided. - Chapter 13: References + Chapter 13: Allocating memory + +The kernel provides the following general purpose memory allocators: +kmalloc(), kzalloc(), kcalloc(), and vmalloc(). Please refer to the API +documentation for further information about them. + +The preferred form for passing a size of a struct is the following: + + p = kmalloc(sizeof(*p), ...); + +The alternative form where struct name is spelled out hurts readability and +introduces an opportunity for a bug when the pointer variable type is changed +but the corresponding sizeof that is passed to a memory allocator is not. + +Casting the return value which is a void pointer is redundant. The conversion +from void pointer to any other pointer type is guaranteed by the C programming +language. + + + Chapter 14: References The C Programming Language, Second Edition by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. |