Re: [PATCH] doc: volatile considered evil

David Rientjes
2007-05-09T02:39:24Z

On Tue, 8 May 2007, Randy Dunlap wrote:

> "volatile" used on a gcc asm extension is different, granted.
> It's not even a C-language "volatile" keyword AFAICT, so it doesn't
> apply in this context.
>

Using 'volatile' for an asm construct certainly is a keyword; in fact, C99
defines 'volatile' as a token which is reserved for use as a keyword.

> Anyway, how is this slightly modified title?
>
> +***** "volatile" considered useless and evil: Just Say NO! *****
> +
> +Do not use the C-language "volatile" keyword on kernel data
> +(extracted from lkml emails from Linus)
>

It's still ambiguous. A much more explicit title that nobody could argue
with would be "do not use the 'volatile' keyword as a type qualifier for
an object."

David