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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/CodingStyle | 21 |
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. |