Re: [PATCH] bio: gcc warning fix.

Daniel Barkalow
2006-01-06T23:12:22Z

On Fri, 6 Jan 2006, Jesper Juhl wrote:

> On 1/6/06, Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> wrote:
> > On Fri, 6 Jan 2006, Al Viro wrote:
> >
> > > On Fri, Jan 06, 2006 at 01:07:29PM -0200, Luiz Fernando Capitulino wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Fixes the following gcc 4.0.2 warning:
> > > >
> > > > fs/bio.c: In function 'bio_alloc_bioset':
> > > > fs/bio.c:167: warning: 'idx' may be used uninitialized in this function
> > >
> > > NAK. There is nothing to fix except for broken logics in gcc.
> > > Please, do not obfuscate correct code just to make gcc to shut up.
> > > Especially for this call of warnings; gcc4 *blows* in that area.
> >
> > Wouldn't it be worthwhile to add -Wno-uninitialized for gcc4, since those
> > warnings mostly have to be ignored (and are therefore not useful for
> > finding actual uninitialized variables) and make it harder to see other
> > types of warnings which might be informative?
> >
> > This would also reduce the number of patches submitted for correct code,
> > since people wouldn't keep having to be told to ignore those warnings.
> >
>
> Hmm, the uninitialized warnings do find real bugs now and then.
> Generate some noice as well, true, but won't we rather tollerate a
> little noice rather than miss bugs?

Uninitialized warnings from some gcc versions do find real bugs, but I bet
that randomly choosing variable declarations to inspect would be more
likely to find bugs than looking at gcc4 warnings. If we tollerate noise,
we're likely to ignore the noise that identifies a bug.

-Daniel
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