Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] scripts/checkpatch.pl: Enforce multiline comment syntax

[Peter Maydell <peter.maydell@linaro.org>]

On 10 August 2018 at 09:34, Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com> wrote:
> This is one of the cases where we are decently consistent:
>
> Lone "/*" or "/**": 9986 cases
>         of which in the first column: 7617
>         of which the first line in the file (license headers): 2834
>         regex: ^[ \t]*/\*\*?[ \t]*$
>
> "/*" with the first line of the comment: 11246
>         of which in the first column: 4985
>         of which the first line in the file: 97
>         regex: ^[ \t]*/\*\*?+(?:(?!\*/).)+?$
>
> License headers almost always have the "lone /*" format.  Apart from
> license headers, 63% of the comments have the now-deprecated format.
>
> Inside functions, 73% of the comments have the now-deprecated format.
> Outside functions it's 50-50.  That's because there are 2024 doc
> comments, which in turn are 50% of the comments that are 1) outside the
> functions 2) using a lone "/*".
>
> So my proposal, which is actually consistent with what QEMU is doing, is
> the following:
>
> 1) the first line of a file should always be "/*", otherwise warn
>
> 2) a comment that starts with "/**" should have it on a lone line
>
> 3) every other multiline comment should start with
> "/*<whitespace><something>"

Personally I would prefer your suggestion, but as I say, there
was no consensus in the thread for it, and there was consensus
for "use the kernel's style here". I don't think we gain much
from reopening the debate at this point.

thanks
-- PMM