Re: [PATCH] Staging: rtlwifi: Remove NULL pointer dereference

From: Tobin C. Harding
Date: Mon Oct 09 2017 - 20:06:15 EST


On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 02:48:58AM +0530, Shreeya Patel wrote:
> Remove NULL pointer dereference as it results in undefined
> behaviour, and will usually lead to a runtime error.

The diff does not show any pointer dereference so it is hard to understand what you are trying to do
with this patch.

> Signed-off-by: Shreeya Patel <shreeya.patel23498@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> drivers/staging/rtlwifi/base.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/staging/rtlwifi/base.c b/drivers/staging/rtlwifi/base.c
> index b88b0e8..5bb8f98 100644
> --- a/drivers/staging/rtlwifi/base.c
> +++ b/drivers/staging/rtlwifi/base.c
> @@ -781,7 +781,7 @@ static void _rtl_txrate_selectmode(struct ieee80211_hw *hw,
>
> struct rtl_priv *rtlpriv = rtl_priv(hw);
> struct rtl_mac *mac = rtl_mac(rtl_priv(hw));
> - struct rtl_sta_info *sta_entry = NULL;
> + struct rtl_sta_info *sta_entry;

Now the pointer just has garbage in it instead of the testable value of NULL. If you are concerned
with the dereference perhaps you could add a NULL check, again it's hard to say without seeing the
code.

It is hard to see how this patch is correct though.

Hope this helps,
Tobin.