From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: [git patches] two warning fixes Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 18:50:28 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: References: <20070718235504.GA9601@havoc.gtf.org> <200707190159.22654.ak@suse.de> <469EAABD.4010504@garzik.org> <1184807945.25235.289.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070718184101.1d31db9c.akpm@linux-foundation.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20070718184101.1d31db9c.akpm@linux-foundation.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: Cc: Benjamin Herrenschmidt , Jeff Garzik , Andi Kleen , LKML , adaplas@gmail.com, linux-fbdev-devel@lists.sourceforge.net On Wed, 18 Jul 2007, Andrew Morton wrote: > > The only reason why the sysfs creation would fail is a kernel bug, > so the consequence of your proposal is in fact unfixed kernel bugs. Well, the thing is, I suspect we have created way more bugs by having that stupid "you must check the return value even if you don't care", than by just letting it go. > Now, we can talk about making those sysfs core functions generate warnings > themselves, and we can talk about generating new wrappers around them which > generate warnings and which return void, then migrating code over to use > those. If the only valid reason to fail is a kernel bug, it damn well should be that sysfs function itself that should complain. It's the only thing that knows and cares. > And we can also talk about blithely ignoring these errors and not telling > anyone about our bugs, but nobody should listen to such scandalous ideas. Here's a question: do you always check the return value of "printf()"? Nobody does. It's not worth it. Trying to do so just creates messy code, and MORE BUGS. So yes, I think we should ignore return values when they have absolutely zero interest level to us. Linus