Re: [PATCH v2 1/5] firmware: fix __getname() missing failure check

[Linus Torvalds]

On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 11:30 AM, Luis R. Rodriguez
<mcgrof@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> +
> +       path = __getname();
> +       if (unlikely(!path))
> +               return PTR_ERR(path);

This makes no sense.

PTR_ERR() on NULL is an insane operation. It's a very non-intuitive
and misleading way of writing "0".

So not only is that "return 0;", that's not likely what you want _anyway_.

If you intended to return an error, you should just have done so, eg

        if (unlikely(!path))
                return -ENOMEM;

which actually does something sane, and is more readable.

PTR_ERR() is for when you get an error pointer, so a sequence like

        if (IS_ERR(ptr))
                return PTR_ERR(ptr);

is sensible (it checks whether the ptr has an error value in it, and
then returns the integer error value of the pointer).

But for a NULL pointer? No.

                       Linus
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/