Re: [PATCH 2/4] coding-style: show how reusing macros prevents naming collisions

Jonathan Corbet
2024-01-08T18:27:23Z

Yueh-Shun Li <shamrocklee@posteo.net> writes:

>> So everything we add to our documentation has a cost in terms of reader
>> attention. We ask people to read through a lot of material now, and
>> should only increase that ask for good reason.
>>
>> With that context, I have to wonder whether we really need to tell our
>> readers, who are supposed to be capable developers, that reuse can help
>> to avoid name collisions?
>>
>
> The motivation comes from existing inconsistency of the "__stringify()"
> macro
> definition between e.g. "samples/bpf/tracex5.bpf.c" and other files.
>
> I agree that increasing the length of the documentation without
> substantial benefits would not be helpful for the readers, and
> doubling the length of a section is too much for its purpose.
>
> Should I shorten it into one sentence, like
>
> ```
> On the other hand, locally-defined variants, such as ``#define
> __stringify(x) #x``,
> could lead to naming collisions that break otherwise functioning
> facilities.
> ```
>
> or just omit it in the next version of patches?

My own feeling (others may well disagree) is that this isn't worth
mentioning in the coding-style document. What you *could* do is to fix
the redefinitions (if that hasn't happened yet) and make sure that the
macros in question are covered in our kernel documentation.

Thanks,

jon