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authorPekka J Enberg <penberg@cs.Helsinki.FI>2005-09-16 19:28:11 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@g5.osdl.org>2005-09-17 11:50:02 -0700
commitaf4e5a218e18ad588d60a4f9d6f8fb5db1a32587 (patch)
tree39f6737bb96998199144382cdb4eb867be180873 /Documentation/CodingStyle
parentf647e08a55d2c88c4e7ab17a0a8e3fcf568fbc65 (diff)
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[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>
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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.