Re: [PATCH 0/1] mm: make read-only accessors take const pointerparameters

[Michal Nazarewicz]

On Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:28:37 +0200, Artem Bityutskiy <dedekind1@xxxxxxxxx>  
wrote:
> I think it is good when small core functions like this are strict and
> use 'const' whenever possible, even though 'const' is so imperfect in C.
>
> Let me give an example from my own experience. I was writing code which
> was using the kernel RB trees, and I was trying to be strict and use
> 'const' whenever possible. But because the core functions like 'rb_next'
> do not have 'const' modifier, I could not use const in many many places
> of my code, because gcc was yelling. And I was not very enthusiastic to
> touch the RB-tree code that time.

The problem is that you end up with two sets of functions (one taking const
another taking non-const), a bunch of macros or a function that takes const
but returns non-const.  If we settle on anything I would probably vote for
the last option but the all are far from ideal.

--
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.o. | Liege of Serenely Enlightened Majesty of      o' \,=./ `o
..o | Computer Science,  Michal "mina86" Nazarewicz    (o o)
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