From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Russell King - ARM Linux Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/9] regulator: helper routine to extract regulator_init_data Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2011 00:01:27 +0100 Message-ID: <20111004230127.GB32102@n2100.arm.linux.org.uk> References: <1317118372-17052-1-git-send-email-rnayak@ti.com> <1317118372-17052-3-git-send-email-rnayak@ti.com> <20110927121003.GB4289@opensource.wolfsonmicro.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20110927121003.GB4289@opensource.wolfsonmicro.com> Sender: linux-omap-owner@vger.kernel.org To: Mark Brown Cc: Rajendra Nayak , b-cousson@ti.com, patches@linaro.org, tony@atomide.com, devicetree-discuss@lists.ozlabs.org, grant.likely@secretlab.ca, linux-omap@vger.kernel.org, lrg@ti.com, linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org List-Id: devicetree@vger.kernel.org On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 01:10:04PM +0100, Mark Brown wrote: > On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 03:42:45PM +0530, Rajendra Nayak wrote: > > > + init_data = devm_kzalloc(dev, sizeof(struct regulator_init_data), > > + GFP_KERNEL); > > + if (!init_data) > > + return NULL; /* Out of memory? */ > > This means that the init data will be kept around for the entire > lifetime of the device rather than being discarded. May I remind you that devm_* lifetime expires whenever the associated driver is unbound, which can be much shorter than the lifetime of the struct device. It expires when any of the following occurs: 1. userspace asks the associated driver to be unbound 2. the driver is removed 3. any driver probe for this struct device fails 4. the struct device is unregistered. So: don't use devm_* for anything other than stuff inside a driver being associated with the struct device itself. Other uses are a bug waiting to happen.