Re: [PATCH 2.6.17-rc2 1/2] return class device pointer from tty_register_device()

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

Tilman Schmidt <tilman@imap.cc> wrote:
>
>  + * Returns a pointer to the class device (or NULL on error).
>  + *
>    * This call is required to be made to register an individual tty device if
>    * the tty driver's flags have the TTY_DRIVER_NO_DEVFS bit set.  If that
>    * bit is not set, this function should not be called.
>    */
>  -void tty_register_device(struct tty_driver *driver, unsigned index,
>  -			 struct device *device)
>  +struct class_device *tty_register_device(struct tty_driver *driver,
>  +					 unsigned index, struct device *device)
>   {

It would be better to make this return ERR_PTR(-Efoo) on error, rather than
NULL.

That way, tty_register_device() ends with

-       class_device_create(tty_class, NULL, dev, device, "%s", name);
+       return class_device_create(tty_class, NULL, dev, device, "%s", name);
 }

which is neat.