Re: [PATCH] i386, nmi: signed vs unsigned mixup

[Jesper Juhl]

On 11/20/05, Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > -ETOOTRIVIAL.  The code as-is works OK, and we have these sorts of things
> >  > all over the tee.
> >  >
> >  Fair enough.
> >
> >  Would a patch to clean this sort of stuff up in bulk all over be of
> >  interrest or should I just leave it alone?
>
> Such a patchset would be pretty intrusive and it's not exactly trivial - at
> each site we need to decide whether we should be using signed or unsigned,
> then change one or the other, then do a full-scope check to see what the
> implications of that change are.
>
> I think the two risks of signedness sloppiness are a) inadvertent or
> premature overflow and b) comparisons, where the signed quantity went
> negative.
>
> Problem b) is more serious, and `gcc -Wsigned-compare' may be used to
> identify possible problems.  There are quite a lot of places need checking,
> iirc.
>
Ok, so does that mean that, if properly verified, patches for things
that "gcc -Wsigned-compare" flags will be appreciated?
I'll just restrict myself to that in that case.

--
Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@xxxxxxxxx>
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