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From: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
To: Cong Wang <xiyou.wangcong@gmail.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH - diffstat only] include/net: Remove extern from function prototypes
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:41:20 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1374716480.1924.18.camel@joe-AO722> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <kspuuk$k2v$1@ger.gmane.org>

On Thu, 2013-07-25 at 01:27 +0000, Cong Wang wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jul 2013 at 17:58 GMT, Joe Perches <joe@perches.com> wrote:

You dropped the author from the cc list.
Always reply to the author.

> > Function prototypes don't need to be declared
> > extern in .h files.  It's assumed by the compiler
> > and is as unnecessary as using auto is when
> > declaring automatic/local variables in a block.
> >
> Since we all know this, why bother it?

If everyone knew this, new ones wouldn't be added.
But a lot are.

Removing extern makes prototypes shorter and more readable.
More prototypes fit in a single line
More arguments fit on a multi-line prototypes.

> Having "extern" doesn't harm
> readability, instead it probably helps.

Sure, just like auto does.  Why isn't that used?

> > I believe it makes grepping for extern useful as
> > all the matches are actual variables and structs.
> You need a semantic tool.

No, not really.  I'm fairly comfortable with spatch.
spatch takes a long time to run for a lot of things.

  reply	other threads:[~2013-07-25  1:41 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2013-07-23 17:58 [RFC PATCH - diffstat only] include/net: Remove extern from function prototypes Joe Perches
2013-07-25  1:27 ` Cong Wang
2013-07-25  1:41   ` Joe Perches [this message]
2013-07-25  1:47     ` Hannes Frederic Sowa
2013-07-25  2:59       ` [PATCH] checkpatch: Warn when using extern with function prototypes in .h files Joe Perches
2013-08-01 12:21       ` David Howells
2013-08-01 13:00         ` Arend van Spriel
2013-07-30  7:10 ` [RFC PATCH - diffstat only] include/net: Remove extern from function prototypes David Miller
2013-07-30  7:38   ` Stephen Rothwell
2013-07-30  7:49     ` David Miller

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