Re: [PATCH] [SCSI] FlashPoint: optimize string comparison

From: Khalid Aziz
Date: Wed Jul 08 2015 - 11:50:25 EST


On 07/08/2015 01:12 AM, Frans Klaver wrote:
On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 7:45 AM, Christophe JAILLET
<christophe.jaillet@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Le 07/07/2015 19:04, Khalid Aziz a Ãcrit :

On 07/07/2015 02:45 AM, Frans Klaver wrote:

On Tue, Jul 7, 2015 at 7:39 AM, Christophe JAILLET
<christophe.jaillet@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Stop comparing the strings as soon as we know that they don't match.

Signed-off-by: Christophe JAILLET <christophe.jaillet@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/scsi/FlashPoint.c | 4 +++-
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/scsi/FlashPoint.c b/drivers/scsi/FlashPoint.c
index 5c74e4c..24a4d1a 100644
--- a/drivers/scsi/FlashPoint.c
+++ b/drivers/scsi/FlashPoint.c
@@ -6280,8 +6280,10 @@ static unsigned char FPT_scmachid(unsigned char
p_card,
match = 1;

for (k = 0; k < ID_STRING_LENGTH; k++) {
- if (p_id_string[k] !=
FPT_scamInfo[i].id_string[k])
+ if (p_id_string[k] !=
FPT_scamInfo[i].id_string[k]) {
match = 0;
+ break;
+ }
}

if (match) {


Why doesn't this use strncmp?

Thanks,
Frans


I suspect that is how this code came from Mylex many years ago. Using
strncmp would indeed be a better way to clean this up. Also, further down in
the same routine:

if (FPT_scamInfo[match].state == ID_UNUSED) {
for (k = 0; k < ID_STRING_LENGTH; k++) {
FPT_scamInfo[match].id_string[k] =
p_id_string[k];
}


This should use strncpy instead. There is another similar spot further
down.

Christophe, if you can send a new patch with these clean-ups, that would
be great.

Thanks,
Khalid


Hi,

I'm sorry but I won't propose a new patch for that.

I had the same reaction at first (why not use strncmp?) but it seems to be
the way this driver is coded. Should we want to introduce strncmp here,
then, as you have noticed, strcpy should be used to. memset could be also
used in many places. Then looking elsewhere in the code, many things should,
IMHO, also be fixed. (use consistently empty lines before/after code ; use
consistently { }...)

Another concern to me is "the use of carriage return". In the following
examples, things could be much more readable if not limited to 50 chars per
line, or so.

80. Parts of the code are indented way too much, resulting in these
unreadable lines. I have to say that this entire driver looks like
something that (sh|w)ould be in staging right now.

FlashPoint.c and BusLogic.c together make up the buslogic driver. I went through a massive clean up of BusLogic.c (addressing issues like the ones you guys are bringing up) when I took over maintenance of buslogic driver and made it 64-bit clean. I am very much in agreement with suggested clean ups, but this code has been in the kernel for a very long time and cleaning it up at this point for the sake of clean up is not a reason enough to destabilize a very stable driver. staging is for drivers under development and in experimental state. buslogic driver is most definitely not experimental. For now we either leave FlashPoint.c as it is or clean it up as part of a bigger effort to add new functionality or fix a major bug.

Christophe's original patch fixes an inefficiency in the code, so my take on it is to either accept the very specific fix without modifying rest of the code or combine this fix with clean up of at least the entire FPT_scmachid() routine.

Thanks,
Khalid



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