Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] Documentation: adopt new coding style of type-aware kmalloc-family

Matthew Wilcox
2026-04-21T19:25:00Z

On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 08:01:58PM +0200, Manuel Ebner wrote:
> +++ b/Documentation/core-api/memory-allocation.rst
> @@ -135,7 +135,7 @@ Selecting memory allocator
> The most straightforward way to allocate memory is to use a function
> from the kmalloc() family. And, to be on the safe side it's best to use
> routines that set memory to zero, like kzalloc(). If you need to
> -allocate memory for an array, there are kmalloc_array() and kcalloc()
> +allocate memory for an array, there are kmalloc_objs() and kzalloc_objs()
> helpers. The helpers struct_size(), array_size() and array3_size() can
> be used to safely calculate object sizes without overflowing.

This seems to have been done without any thought. kmalloc_array() still
exists and has over 500 callers. It should not be de-documented.

> @@ -151,7 +151,7 @@ sizes, the alignment is guaranteed to be at least the largest power-of-two
> divisor of the size.
>
> Chunks allocated with kmalloc() can be resized with krealloc(). Similarly
> -to kmalloc_array(): a helper for resizing arrays is provided in the form of
> +to kmalloc_objs(): a helper for resizing arrays is provided in the form of
> krealloc_array().

Think about why this is wrong too.

And you should have cc'd linux-mm on this.