From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ian Abbott Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2012 09:28:24 +0000 Subject: Re: [patch] staging: comedi: cleanup comedi_recognize() Message-Id: <4FCF22B8.7060500@mev.co.uk> List-Id: References: <20120524102851.GA4399@elgon.mountain> In-Reply-To: <20120524102851.GA4399@elgon.mountain> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: kernel-janitors@vger.kernel.org On 2012-06-05 12:01, Dan Carpenter wrote: > On Tue, Jun 05, 2012 at 12:06:10PM +0200, walter harms wrote: >> Hi all, >> the patch is fine with me but i have a few basic questions: >> >> Why the (void *) at all ? it returns a name what is a const char *. >> > > We're really returning a pointer to a private struct, it's just that > the first element on the struct always has to be a pointer to char *. To be pedantic, it's really returning a pointer to some member of type 'const char *' within a private struct. To make life easier for themselves, those drivers make that the first member of the private struct so a void pointer to the member is also a void pointer to the struct. -- -=( Ian Abbott @ MEV Ltd. E-mail: )=- -=( Tel: +44 (0)161 477 1898 FAX: +44 (0)161 718 3587 )=-