Re: [PATCH] platform/x86: dell-smbios: make a function and a pointer static

[Darren Hart]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 07:15:24PM +0100, Colin King wrote:
> From: Colin Ian King <colin.king@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> The function dell_smbios_smm_call and pointer platform_device are
> local to the source and do not need to be in global scope, so make
> them static.
> 
> Cleans up sparse warnings:
> warning: symbol 'platform_device' was not declared. Should it be static?
> warning: symbol 'dell_smbios_smm_call' was not declared. Should it be
> static?
> 
> Signed-off-by: Colin Ian King <colin.king@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c b/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c
> index e9e9da556318..97a90bebc360 100644
> --- a/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c
> +++ b/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c
> @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
>  static int da_command_address;
>  static int da_command_code;
>  static struct calling_interface_buffer *buffer;
> -struct platform_device *platform_device;
> +static struct platform_device *platform_device;
>  static DEFINE_MUTEX(smm_mutex);
>  
>  static const struct dmi_system_id dell_device_table[] __initconst = {
> @@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ static void find_cmd_address(const struct dmi_header *dm, void *dummy)
>  	}
>  }
>  
> -int dell_smbios_smm_call(struct calling_interface_buffer *input)
> +static int dell_smbios_smm_call(struct calling_interface_buffer *input)

Hrm. So these are passed by pointer to dell_smbios_register_device(), which is in
turn called by dell_smbios_call() from dell-smbios-base.c.

So while it is valid to make these static, since we're not referencing the
symbol, but the pointer value instead - I do worry about the "static" suggesting
to someone reading the code that this data is not used outside of this file,
when it is.

I'm not finding a position on this in coding-style.

Andy, do you care to weigh in on this?

-- 
Darren Hart
VMware Open Source Technology Center