[PATCH] Add zero-object requirement to kobject documentation

From: Jason Noakes
Date: Sun Oct 05 2014 - 18:15:20 EST


Explicitly document the requirement that the memory passed to
kobject_init() must be zero-initialized beforehand.

Signed-off-by: Jason J. Noakes <jjnoakes@xxxxxxxxx>

diff --git a/Documentation/kobject.txt b/Documentation/kobject.txt
index f87241d..1b38727 100644
--- a/Documentation/kobject.txt
+++ b/Documentation/kobject.txt
@@ -113,8 +113,14 @@ question. That macro is subsequently invoked with:

Initialization of kobjects

-Code which creates a kobject must, of course, initialize that object. Some
-of the internal fields are setup with a (mandatory) call to kobject_init():
+Code which creates a kobject must, of course, initialize that object.
+
+First, ensure the memory for the kobject is initialized to zero; this is
+typically accomplished by obtaining the memory for the kobject (and the
+structure it is embedded in) from a call to kzalloc().
+
+Then, some of the internal fields must be setup with a (mandatory) call
+to kobject_init():

void kobject_init(struct kobject *kobj, struct kobj_type *ktype);

diff --git a/lib/kobject.c b/lib/kobject.c
index 58751bb..46fc865 100644
--- a/lib/kobject.c
+++ b/lib/kobject.c
@@ -307,6 +307,8 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(kobject_set_name);
* This function will properly initialize a kobject such that it can then
* be passed to the kobject_add() call.
*
+ * The kobject must be initialized to zero prior to calling this function.
+ *
* After this function is called, the kobject MUST be cleaned up by a call
* to kobject_put(), not by a call to kfree directly to ensure that all of
* the memory is cleaned up properly.
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