kernel/linux.git/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst, branch v7.2-rc1

Documentation: Fix syntax of kmalloc_objs example in coding style doc

2026-06-01T18:48:20+00:00

The first parameter should match the variable that the allocated memory is assigned to. Fix the example accordingly, the one for kmalloc_obj got it right already. Fixes: 7c6d969d5349 ("Documentation: adopt new coding style of type-aware kmalloc-family") Signed-off-by: Uwe Kleine-König Reviewed-by: Geert Uytterhoeven Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Message-ID: <20260529081006.2019687-2-ukleinek@kernel.org>

Documentation: adopt new coding style of type-aware kmalloc-family

2026-05-03T14:54:21+00:00

Update the documentation to reflect new type-aware kmalloc-family as suggested in commit 2932ba8d9c99 ("slab: Introduce kmalloc_obj() and family") ptr = kmalloc(sizeof(*ptr), gfp); -> ptr = kmalloc_obj(*ptr, gfp); ptr = kmalloc(sizeof(struct some_obj_name), gfp); -> ptr = kmalloc_obj(*ptr, gfp); ptr = kzalloc(sizeof(*ptr), gfp); -> ptr = kzalloc_obj(*ptr, gfp); ptr = kmalloc_array(count, sizeof(*ptr), gfp); -> ptr = kmalloc_objs(*ptr, count, gfp); ptr = kcalloc(count, sizeof(*ptr), gfp); -> ptr = kzalloc_objs(*ptr, count, gfp); Signed-off-by: Manuel Ebner Acked-by: SeongJae Park Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Message-ID: <20260429071445.309733-2-manuelebner@mailbox.org>

docs: kdoc: move kernel-doc to tools/docs

2026-01-20T22:31:06+00:00

kernel-doc is the last documentation-related tool still living outside of the tools/docs directory; the time has come to move it over. [mchehab: fixed kdoc lib location] Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Message-ID: <311d17e403524349940a8b12de6b5e91e554b1f4.1768823489.git.mchehab+huawei@kernel.org>

docs: Update documentation to avoid mentioning of kernel.h

2025-12-22T21:59:18+00:00

For several years, and still ongoing, the kernel.h is being split to smaller and narrow headers to avoid "including everything" approach which is bad in many ways. Since that, documentation missed a few required updates to align with that work. Do it here. Note, language translations are left untouched and if anybody willing to help, please provide path(es) based on the updated English variant. Signed-off-by: Andy Shevchenko Reviewed-by: Randy Dunlap Reviewed-by: Mathieu Poirier Tested-by: Randy Dunlap Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Message-ID: <20251126214709.2322314-1-andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com>

coding-style: fix verb typo

2025-11-03T23:11:24+00:00

In the Identation section there is a list of instructions in second-person. The offending line uses third-person singular. Signed-off-by: Gabriele Ricciardi Acked-by: Randy Dunlap Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Message-ID: <20251101223027.171874-1-gricciardi-coding@pm.me>

docs: process: discourage pointless boilerplate kdoc

2025-06-21T20:14:33+00:00

It appears that folks "less versed in kernel coding" think that its good style to document every function, even if they have no useful information to pass to the future readers of the code. This used to be just a waste of space, but with increased kdoc format linting it's also a burden when refactoring the code. Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski Reviewed-by: Joe Damato Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250614204258.61449-1-kuba@kernel.org

docs/process: fix typos

2024-09-10T21:16:28+00:00

Fix typos in documentation. Signed-off-by: Andrew Kreimer Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Message-ID: <20240907122534.15998-1-algonell@gmail.com>

net: drop special comment style

2024-08-23T09:21:02+00:00

As we discussed in the room at netdevconf earlier this week, drop the requirement for special comment style for netdev. For checkpatch, the general check accepts both right now, so simply drop the special request there as well. Acked-by: Stephen Hemminger Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg Acked-by: Jakub Kicinski Signed-off-by: David S. Miller

Docs: Move clang-format from process/ to dev-tools/

2024-06-26T22:36:00+00:00

'clang-format' is on 'Other material' section of 'process/index', but it may fit more under 'dev-tools/' directory. Move it. Signed-off-by: SeongJae Park Acked-by: Miguel Ojeda Acked-by: Federico Vaga Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240624185312.94537-5-sj@kernel.org

Documentation: coding-style: ask function-like macros to evaluate parameters

2024-05-11T22:51:44+00:00

Patch series "codingstyle: avoid unused parameters for a function-like macro", v7. A function-like macro could result in build warnings such as "unused variable." This patchset updates the guidance to recommend always using a static inline function instead and also provides checkpatch support for this new rule. This patch (of 2): Recent commit 77292bb8ca69c80 ("crypto: scomp - remove memcpy if sg_nents is 1 and pages are lowmem") leads to warnings on xtensa and loongarch, In file included from crypto/scompress.c:12: include/crypto/scatterwalk.h: In function 'scatterwalk_pagedone': include/crypto/scatterwalk.h:76:30: warning: variable 'page' set but not used [-Wunused-but-set-variable] 76 | struct page *page; | ^~~~ crypto/scompress.c: In function 'scomp_acomp_comp_decomp': >> crypto/scompress.c:174:38: warning: unused variable 'dst_page' [-Wunused-variable] 174 | struct page *dst_page = sg_page(req->dst); | The reason is that flush_dcache_page() is implemented as a noop macro on these platforms as below, #define flush_dcache_page(page) do { } while (0) The driver code, for itself, seems be quite innocent and placing maybe_unused seems pointless, struct page *dst_page = sg_page(req->dst); for (i = 0; i < nr_pages; i++) flush_dcache_page(dst_page + i); And it should be independent of architectural implementation differences. Let's provide guidance on coding style for requesting parameter evaluation or proposing the migration to a static inline function. Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20240507032757.146386-1-21cnbao@gmail.com Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20240507032757.146386-2-21cnbao@gmail.com Signed-off-by: Barry Song Suggested-by: Max Filippov Reviewed-by: Mark Brown Acked-by: Joe Perches Cc: Chris Zankel Cc: Huacai Chen Cc: Herbert Xu Cc: Guenter Roeck Cc: Stephen Rothwell Cc: Andy Whitcroft Cc: Dwaipayan Ray Cc: Joe Perches Cc: Jonathan Corbet Cc: Lukas Bulwahn Cc: Xining Xu Cc: Charlemagne Lasse Cc: Jeff Johnson Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton