[Question] Redundant ternary operators in nhpoly1305/sha256 digest functions?

[Jang Ingyu]

From: Ingyu Jang <ingyujang25@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Hi,

I noticed that in arch/x86/crypto/, several digest functions use
the ternary operator (?:) to chain function calls:

In nhpoly1305-avx2-glue.c and nhpoly1305-sse2-glue.c:

  return crypto_nhpoly1305_init(desc) ?:
         nhpoly1305_xxx_update(desc, src, srclen) ?:
         crypto_nhpoly1305_final(desc, out);

In sha256_ssse3_glue.c (sha256_ssse3_digest, sha256_avx_digest,
sha256_avx2_digest, sha256_ni_digest):

  return sha256_base_init(desc) ?:
         sha256_xxx_finup(desc, data, len, out);

However, all the functions being checked always return 0:
  - crypto_nhpoly1305_init() always returns 0
  - nhpoly1305_xxx_update() always returns 0
  - crypto_nhpoly1305_final() always returns 0
  - sha256_base_init() always returns 0

This makes the short-circuit evaluation of ?: unnecessary.

Is this intentional defensive coding for potential future changes,
or could this be cleaned up?

Thanks,
Ingyu Jang