[PATCH v2 1/9] lib: string_helpers: provide kfree_strarray()

From: Bartosz Golaszewski
Date: Mon Sep 28 2020 - 06:42:05 EST


From: Bartosz Golaszewski <bgolaszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

There's a common pattern of dynamically allocating an array of char
pointers and then also dynamically allocating each string in this
array. Provide a helper for freeing such a string array with one call.

Signed-off-by: Bartosz Golaszewski <bgolaszewski@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
include/linux/string_helpers.h | 2 ++
lib/string_helpers.c | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 27 insertions(+)

diff --git a/include/linux/string_helpers.h b/include/linux/string_helpers.h
index 86f150c2a6b6..55b25120a1c6 100644
--- a/include/linux/string_helpers.h
+++ b/include/linux/string_helpers.h
@@ -94,4 +94,6 @@ char *kstrdup_quotable(const char *src, gfp_t gfp);
char *kstrdup_quotable_cmdline(struct task_struct *task, gfp_t gfp);
char *kstrdup_quotable_file(struct file *file, gfp_t gfp);

+void kfree_strarray(char **str_array, size_t num_str);
+
#endif
diff --git a/lib/string_helpers.c b/lib/string_helpers.c
index 963050c0283e..bfa4c9f3ca0a 100644
--- a/lib/string_helpers.c
+++ b/lib/string_helpers.c
@@ -649,3 +649,28 @@ char *kstrdup_quotable_file(struct file *file, gfp_t gfp)
return pathname;
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kstrdup_quotable_file);
+
+/**
+ * kfree_strarray - free a number of dynamically allocated strings contained
+ * in an array and the array itself
+ *
+ * @str_array: Dynamically allocated array of strings to free. If NULL - the
+ * function does nothing.
+ * @num_str: Number of strings (starting from the beginning of the array) to
+ * free.
+ *
+ * Passing a non-null str_array and num_str == 0 as well as NULL str_array
+ * are valid use-cases.
+ */
+void kfree_strarray(char **str_array, size_t num_str)
+{
+ unsigned int i;
+
+ if (!str_array)
+ return;
+
+ for (i = 0; i < num_str; i++)
+ kfree(str_array[i]);
+ kfree(str_array);
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(kfree_strarray);
--
2.26.1