Hi,
On Thu, Jul 10, 2003 at 04:28:09PM -0400, Alan Stern wrote:
> There are many places in the kernel where a function checks whether a
> pointers it has been given is NULL. Now sometimes this makes perfect
> sense because the function's description explicitly says that a NULL
> pointer argument is valid. But in many, many cases (maybe even the
> majority) it is nothing more than paranoia: the pointer can never be NULL
> in a properly functioning system.
There are many meanings of NULL.
a) NULL -> I don't know
Reaction: Ok, then do a generic/default variant.
b) NULL -> failure in caller passed down to us.
Reaction: Pass it on, return -EINVAL or ignore the call
c) NULL -> failure in API (argument can't be NULL)
Reaction: BUG_ON()
...
So the answer isn't only taste, it's a matter of simplicity and
roboustness.
Regards
Ingo Oeser
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jul 15 2003 - 22:00:49 EST