Re: [PATCH 1/28] drivers/base/platform.c: Drop return value from platform_driver remove functions

[Greg KH <gregkh@suse.de>]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 01:00:08PM +0200, Dmitri Vorobiev wrote:
> Greg KH wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 05:37:42PM -0500, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> >> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 17:18, Vorobiev Dmitri wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 11:26, Julia Lawall wrote:
> >>>>> The return value of the remove function of a driver structure, and thus
> >>>>> of
> >>>>> a platform_driver structure, is ultimately ignored, and is thus
> >>>>> unnecessary.  The goal of this patch is to make it possible to convert
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> platform_driver functions stored in the remove field such that they
> >>>>> return
> >>>>> void.  This patch introduces a temporary field remove_new with return
> >>>>> type
> >>>>> void into the platform_driver structure, and updates the only place that
> >>>>> the remove function is called to call the function in the remove_new
> >>>>> field,
> >>>>> if one is available.  The subsequent patches update some drivers to use
> >>>>> the
> >>>>> remove_new field.
> >>>> why bother with remove -> remove_new convention ?
> >>> Please see this email for the background:
> >>>
> >>> http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/12/10/231
> >>>
> >>>>  you'll get a
> >>>> warning in C about the assignment, but you wont get a build failure,
> >>> ...unless you compile with -Werror, which frequently the case.
> >> anyone crazy enough to build with -Werror is crazy enough to send in a fix ;)
> > 
> > Hm, have you noted that some arches have that flag enabled in their
> > build?
> > 
> > And it's not ok to add a couple of hundred build warnings to the system,
> > sorry.
> 
> Still, what about the whole series? What do you think about int->void
> migration for the remove() callback?

In thinking about it some more, I don't really see the point.  We should
probably just do something about the return value, as that would be
better, and easier to do.

thanks,

greg k-h