[PATCH] checkpatch: add check for missing */ in spdx line

From: Tim Bird

Date: Wed Feb 04 2026 - 16:38:37 EST


Add an explicit check for leading /* but missing */
to avoid a malformed SPDX line.

In many cases an SPDX-License-Identifier line immediately
precedes another C-style comment. In that case, if
the SPDX line starts with '/*' but is missing the closing '*/',
the compiler may not catch it (the leading '/*' on
the next line and the rest of the header comment is just
treated as part of the SPDX comment).

Signed-off-by: Tim Bird <tim.bird@xxxxxxxx>
---
scripts/checkpatch.pl | 5 +++++
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
index c0250244cf7a..1cc3fd5e72af 100755
--- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
+++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
@@ -3794,6 +3794,11 @@ sub process {
WARN("SPDX_LICENSE_TAG",
"Improper SPDX comment style for '$realfile', please use '$comment' instead\n" . $herecurr);
}
+ if ($comment eq '/*' &&
+ $rawline !~ m@\*/@) {
+ WARN("SPDX_LICENSE_TAG",
+ "Improper SPDX comment style for '$realfile', missing closing '*/'\n" . $herecurr);
+ }

if ($comment !~ /^$/ &&
$rawline !~ m@^\+\Q$comment\E SPDX-License-Identifier: @) {
--
2.43.0