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

[Josh Triplett <josh@joshtriplett.org>]

On Thu, Feb 02, 2012 at 01:34:16PM -0800, Joe Perches wrote:
> On Thu, 2012-02-02 at 22:29 +0100, Jesper Juhl wrote:
> > But generally a good idea to warn about "easily grepable strings broken 
> > into multiple lines" if possible, IMHO...
> 
> Maybe count the %'s?  Ignore if more than 2?

Numerous greppable strings include several formats, but you can
generally look at a message and know which non-parameterized bits to
grep for.  Even in the case of strings with numerous parameters, it
often works better to grep for the whole string and replace the
parameters with '.*', and make the string incrementally less specific
until I find it.  For example, from dmesg on my system:

[    0.000000] last_pfn = 0xdb000 max_arch_pfn = 0x400000000

Grepping for "last_pfn" or even "last_pfn = " produces a pile of
results, but grepping for 'last_pfn = .* max_arch_pfn' produces exactly
one result:

arch/x86/kernel/e820.c: printk(KERN_INFO "last_pfn = %#lx max_arch_pfn = %#lx\n",

That wouldn't work if the string broke across lines.  So, I still think
it seems reasonable for checkpatch to encourage keeping such strings
un-split.

- Josh Triplett