Re: [PATCH] char: Add Dell Systems Management Base driver

[Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>]

On Wed, Jul 06, 2005 at 06:41:19PM -0500, Doug Warzecha wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 06, 2005 at 09:07:37AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 06, 2005 at 10:57:35AM -0500, Doug Warzecha wrote:
> > > On Tue, Jul 05, 2005 at 11:17:03PM -0500, Greg KH wrote:
> > > >    > +static void dcdbas_device_release(struct device *dev)
> > > >    > +{
> > > >    > +     /* nothing to release */
> > > >    > +}
> > > > 
> > > >    This is a symptom of a broken driver.
> > > > 
> > > >    Hm, I wonder if there's some way for the compiler to check the fact that
> > > >    a function pointer passed to another function, is really a null
> > > >    function.  That would stop this kind of nonsense...
> > > 
> > > There are other drivers in the kernel tree with null device release functions.
> > 
> > Where?
> 
> Here's a couple:
> 
> drivers/video/vfb.c: vfb_platform_release
> drivers/video/epson1355fb.c: epson1355fb_platform_release

Platform devices are a pain.  That being said, these are wrong and
should be fixed up to use platform_device_register_simple() instead.

It still doesn't justify you doing it in your driver :)

Thanks for pointing it out to me,

greg k-h