dealing with gcc 'comparison is always false' warnings (was: [PATCH] drivers/infiniband: fix comparsion between unsigned and negative)

From: Roland Dreier
Date: Wed May 30 2007 - 11:30:29 EST


thanks... I'm wondering if there's a consensus among kernel hackers
about changes like:

> - if (hdr.cmd < 0 || hdr.cmd >= ARRAY_SIZE(ucma_cmd_table))
> + if (hdr.cmd >= ARRAY_SIZE(ucma_cmd_table))
> return -EINVAL;

I understand that new gcc sees that hdr.cmd is unsigned and hence
can't be < 0, and generates a warning for that, and having a build
cluttered with warnings hides bugs and so on. However the code here
looks quite sensible to me -- otherwise we end up with missing range
checking if hdr.cmd ever changes to a signed type. This seems like a
good way to introduce bugs: delete valid range checking code to shut
up a silly gcc warning, and then change the type of a variable.

Can't we just make gcc shut up about the comparison and generate no
code for it because it knows it can't be true?

- R.
-
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