Re: [2.6 patch] drivers/net/smc-mca.c: cleanups

From: Arjan van de Ven
Date: Sat Feb 19 2005 - 10:44:34 EST



> > > This comment is applicable to similar changes, also. Use 'const'
> > > whenever possible.
> >
> > does that even have meaning in C? In C++ it does, but afaik in C it
> > doesn't.
>
> Yes it does. Often the variables declared this way will go into the text
> section which is marked read-only.

true. Doesn't mean too much for the kernel right now (in kernel space
not a lot of memory is really read only) though.

> I've used this technique in a few very
> small programs to reduce their size (I could strip off both their bss and
> data sections to save space). Also, I believe that the compiler is able
> to optimize code using consts, but this is pure speculation, I've not
> verified it.

Afaik that's the main difference between C and C++; in C you can still
change "const" variables... in C++ thats illegal (at least that's what I
remember and google seems to support somewhat ;)


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