Re: [PATCH 5/9] usb: fix empty-body warning in sysfs.c

[Alan Stern]

On Tue, 21 Apr 2020, NeilBrown wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 18 2020, Alan Stern wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 18 Apr 2020, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 11:41:07AM -0700, Randy Dunlap wrote:
> >> > +++ linux-next-20200327/drivers/usb/core/sysfs.c
> >> > @@ -1263,7 +1263,7 @@ void usb_create_sysfs_intf_files(struct
> >> >  	if (!alt->string && !(udev->quirks & USB_QUIRK_CONFIG_INTF_STRINGS))
> >> >  		alt->string = usb_cache_string(udev, alt->desc.iInterface);
> >> >  	if (alt->string && device_create_file(&intf->dev, &dev_attr_interface))
> >> > -		;	/* We don't actually care if the function fails. */
> >> > +		do_empty(); /* We don't actually care if the function fails. */
> >> >  	intf->sysfs_files_created = 1;
> >> >  }
> >> 
> >> Why not just?
> >> 
> >> +	if (alt->string)
> >> +		device_create_file(&intf->dev, &dev_attr_interface);
> >
> > This is another __must_check function call.
> >
> > The reason we don't care if the call fails is because the file
> > being created holds the USB interface string descriptor, something
> > which is purely informational and hardly ever gets set (and no doubt
> > gets used even less often).
> >
> > Is this another situation where the comment should be expanded and the 
> > code modified to include a useless test and cast-to-void?
> >
> > Or should device_create_file() not be __must_check after all?
> 
> One approach to dealing with __must_check function that you don't want
> to check is to cause failure to call
>    pr_debug("usb: interface descriptor file not created");
> or similar.  It silences the compiler, serves as documentation, and
> creates a message that is almost certainly never seen.
> 
> This is what I did in drivers/md/md.c...
> 
> 	if (mddev->kobj.sd &&
> 	    sysfs_create_group(&mddev->kobj, &md_bitmap_group))
> 		pr_debug("pointless warning\n");
> 
> (I give better warnings elsewhere - I must have run out of patience by
>  this point).

That's a decent idea.  I'll do something along those lines.

Alan Stern