From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756998AbZFYDAs (ORCPT ); Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:48 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752636AbZFYDAj (ORCPT ); Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:39 -0400 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:43412 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751772AbZFYDAj (ORCPT ); Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:00:39 -0400 Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:00:29 -0700 From: Andrew Morton To: David Woodhouse Cc: Gerard Lledo , linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] [JFFS2] jffs2_start_garbage_collect_thread() return value cleanup Message-Id: <20090624200029.d875c48e.akpm@linux-foundation.org> In-Reply-To: <1245838141.25547.5207.camel@macbook.infradead.org> References: <20090602113216.GA3513@tank> <1243944686-7039-1-git-send-email-gerard.lledo@gmail.com> <1243944686-7039-2-git-send-email-gerard.lledo@gmail.com> <1245838141.25547.5207.camel@macbook.infradead.org> X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.8 (GTK+ 2.12.5; x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:09:01 +0100 David Woodhouse wrote: > On Tue, 2009-06-02 at 15:11 +0300, Gerard Lledo wrote: > > There is no user of this return value in the kernel. Change it to return void > > instead. > > NAK. I hate this type of patch. > > A function _should_ return an error value indicating success or failure, > if there's _any_ chance that it (or a future rewrite of it) may fail. > > It's up to the _callers_ to act on that result, or not, as they see fit. True. > Andrew, may I suggest that you look for such justification in future > patches of this type? eh, I sometimes don't even look at them. I just save them up in case of maintainer fumblage. I might retain this one as a "jffs2 fails to check jffs2_start_garbage_collect_thread() return value" bug report :)