CodingStyle Problem

CodingStyle Problem

[HarryWei]

Hi all,
      I just read the CodingSyle at Documentation directory in linux-2.6.23 kernel source code.
      But a problem happened to me like following.
      Functions in linux-2.6.23/fs/fs-writeback.c are "static int" and function name are in different lines.(function name in following line)
      I can't find the rule in CodingStyle. That We often program functions are "static int" and function name are in the same line. 
      When do we do the first or second way? What is different between them?

  Any answer is okay.
  Best regards.

Re: CodingStyle Problem

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2010, HarryWei wrote:

> Hi all,
>       I just read the CodingSyle at Documentation directory in linux-2.6.23 kernel source code.
>       But a problem happened to me like following.
>       Functions in linux-2.6.23/fs/fs-writeback.c are "static int" and function name are in different lines.(function name in following line)
>       I can't find the rule in CodingStyle. That We often program functions are "static int" and function name are in the same line.
>       When do we do the first or second way? What is different between them?
>
>   Any answer is okay.
>   Best regards.

  the advantage to the form

static int
function-name

is that, if you're looking for the actual function *definition* in the
file, having the function name at the start of a new line means you
can search for it with the pattern "^function-name" so that you don't
have to wade through all of the invocations of that function.

  i like that style; others claim that with proper cross-referencers
like cscope, doing that is redundant.  as far as i know, the kernel
coding style doesn't take a position on that, but i'm willing to be
corrected.

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
                        http://crashcourse.ca

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