From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andrew Eikum Subject: Re: [PATCH] Fix for possible null pointer dereference in dma.c Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 14:29:58 -0500 Message-ID: <20140520192958.GE6639@foghorn.codeweavers.com> References: <1400191076-28279-1-git-send-email-rickard_strandqvist@spectrumdigital.se> <5379E284.7030700@gmail.com> <537BAA2B.9090906@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from mail.codeweavers.com (mail.codeweavers.com [216.251.189.131]) by alsa0.perex.cz (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1A0DA26262D for ; Tue, 20 May 2014 21:30:08 +0200 (CEST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <537BAA2B.9090906@gmail.com> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: alsa-devel-bounces@alsa-project.org Sender: alsa-devel-bounces@alsa-project.org To: Tomasz Figa Cc: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org, Kukjin Kim , Rickard Strandqvist , Sangbeom Kim , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Liam Girdwood , Takashi Iwai , Mark Brown , linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, Ben Dooks , linux-samsung-soc@vger.kernel.org List-Id: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 09:16:59PM +0200, Tomasz Figa wrote: > To me having NULL as either data argument of buffer done callback or > private_data would be a serious driver bug and IMHO it's better to let > it crash with a NULL pointer dereference to let someone notice than mask > it by adding a condition. > Please, no. Regardless of who is at fault, crashes in library code are insanely frustrating to application developers. Error codes can be handled nicely and expressed to the user as an error message. Crashes are hideous for end users and usually end up being support nightmares for developers. Related: https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/kay/libabc.git/tree/README?id=0573b57c7bdb4c82d6acd62f7923a6503f4f679a#n126 Andrew