Re: [PATCH] checkpatch: Check for quoted strings broken across lines

Nick Bowler
2012-02-02T20:22:13Z

On 2012-02-02 12:06 -0800, Josh Triplett wrote:
> Documentation/CodingStyle recommends not splitting quoted strings across
> lines, because it breaks the ability to grep for the string. checkpatch
> already makes an exception to the 80-column rule for quoted strings to
> allow this. Rather than just allowing it, actively warn about quoted
> strings split across lines.
[...]
> +# Check for strings broken across lines (breaks greppability). Make an
> +# exception when the previous string ends in a newline (multiple lines in one
> +# string constant) or \n\t (common in inline assembly to indent the instruction
> +# on the following line).

There are tons of strings in the kernel that this makes checkpatch warn
about where it probably shouldn't. For example, this one (from
kernel/auditsc.c:1476):

audit_log_format(ab,
"oflag=0x%x mode=%#ho mq_flags=0x%lx mq_maxmsg=%ld "
"mq_msgsize=%ld mq_curmsgs=%ld",

WARNING: quoted string split across lines
#1478: FILE: auditsc.c:1478:
+ "mq_msgsize=%ld mq_curmsgs=%ld",

Breaking "greppability" of this string is a non-issue, because this sort
of string is not really greppable to begin with (and would certainly not
be any easier to grep for if it were all on one line).

Cheers,
--
Nick Bowler, Elliptic Technologies (http://www.elliptictech.com/)