Re: __free usage

[Przemek Kitszel <przemyslaw.kitszel@intel.com>]

On 8/5/26 00:56, Jeff Johnson via Intel-wired-lan wrote:
> On 8/4/2026 3:54 PM, Jeff Johnson wrote:
>> On 11/16/2025 7:56 AM, Ally Heev wrote:
>>> usage of cleanup attributes is discouraged in net [1], achieve cleanup
>>> using goto. In this patch though, only uninitialized pointers with __free
>>> attribute are cleaned as they can cause undefined behavior when they
>>> go out of scope
>>>
>>> Suggested-by: Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>
>>> Reported-by: Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@linaro.org>
>>> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/aPiG_F5EBQUjZqsl@stanley.mountain/
>>> Signed-off-by: Ally Heev <allyheev@gmail.com>
>>>
>>> [1] https://docs.kernel.org/process/maintainer-netdev.html#using-device-managed-and-cleanup-h-constructs
>>
>> <SMH>
>>
>> If using __free() *correctly* gives more readable code, why wouldn't we do it?
>>
>> The only problem with this function is that it doesn't follow the guidance
>> from cleanup.h:
>>
>>   * the recommendation is to always define and assign variables in one
>>   * statement and not group variable definitions at the top of the
>>   * function when __free() is used.
> OMG, not sure why Thunderbird showed this as a recent unread e-mail.
> Please ignore this noise!

always happy to see some __free() advocates :)

perhaps with our new meticulous friend Sashiko __free() would not be
misused anymore, especially if we let them know the following quote:

 > So just make the rule be that __free() without an assignment is 
simply > a bug.
 >               Linus

and the resulting "less code" is always better (if only to fit more
data into the AI context window)