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1da177e4 LT |
1 | |
2 | How to Get Your Change Into the Linux Kernel | |
3 | or | |
4 | Care And Operation Of Your Linus Torvalds | |
5 | ||
6 | ||
7 | ||
8 | For a person or company who wishes to submit a change to the Linux | |
9 | kernel, the process can sometimes be daunting if you're not familiar | |
10 | with "the system." This text is a collection of suggestions which | |
11 | can greatly increase the chances of your change being accepted. | |
12 | ||
bc7455fa RD |
13 | Read Documentation/SubmitChecklist for a list of items to check |
14 | before submitting code. If you are submitting a driver, also read | |
15 | Documentation/SubmittingDrivers. | |
1da177e4 LT |
16 | |
17 | ||
18 | ||
19 | -------------------------------------------- | |
20 | SECTION 1 - CREATING AND SENDING YOUR CHANGE | |
21 | -------------------------------------------- | |
22 | ||
23 | ||
24 | ||
25 | 1) "diff -up" | |
26 | ------------ | |
27 | ||
28 | Use "diff -up" or "diff -uprN" to create patches. | |
29 | ||
30 | All changes to the Linux kernel occur in the form of patches, as | |
31 | generated by diff(1). When creating your patch, make sure to create it | |
32 | in "unified diff" format, as supplied by the '-u' argument to diff(1). | |
33 | Also, please use the '-p' argument which shows which C function each | |
34 | change is in - that makes the resultant diff a lot easier to read. | |
35 | Patches should be based in the root kernel source directory, | |
36 | not in any lower subdirectory. | |
37 | ||
38 | To create a patch for a single file, it is often sufficient to do: | |
39 | ||
84da7c08 | 40 | SRCTREE= linux-2.6 |
1da177e4 LT |
41 | MYFILE= drivers/net/mydriver.c |
42 | ||
43 | cd $SRCTREE | |
44 | cp $MYFILE $MYFILE.orig | |
45 | vi $MYFILE # make your change | |
46 | cd .. | |
47 | diff -up $SRCTREE/$MYFILE{.orig,} > /tmp/patch | |
48 | ||
49 | To create a patch for multiple files, you should unpack a "vanilla", | |
50 | or unmodified kernel source tree, and generate a diff against your | |
51 | own source tree. For example: | |
52 | ||
84da7c08 | 53 | MYSRC= /devel/linux-2.6 |
1da177e4 | 54 | |
84da7c08 RD |
55 | tar xvfz linux-2.6.12.tar.gz |
56 | mv linux-2.6.12 linux-2.6.12-vanilla | |
57 | diff -uprN -X linux-2.6.12-vanilla/Documentation/dontdiff \ | |
58 | linux-2.6.12-vanilla $MYSRC > /tmp/patch | |
1da177e4 LT |
59 | |
60 | "dontdiff" is a list of files which are generated by the kernel during | |
61 | the build process, and should be ignored in any diff(1)-generated | |
84da7c08 RD |
62 | patch. The "dontdiff" file is included in the kernel tree in |
63 | 2.6.12 and later. For earlier kernel versions, you can get it | |
64 | from <http://www.xenotime.net/linux/doc/dontdiff>. | |
1da177e4 LT |
65 | |
66 | Make sure your patch does not include any extra files which do not | |
67 | belong in a patch submission. Make sure to review your patch -after- | |
68 | generated it with diff(1), to ensure accuracy. | |
69 | ||
70 | If your changes produce a lot of deltas, you may want to look into | |
71 | splitting them into individual patches which modify things in | |
84da7c08 | 72 | logical stages. This will facilitate easier reviewing by other |
1da177e4 | 73 | kernel developers, very important if you want your patch accepted. |
84da7c08 | 74 | There are a number of scripts which can aid in this: |
1da177e4 LT |
75 | |
76 | Quilt: | |
77 | http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/quilt | |
78 | ||
1da177e4 | 79 | Andrew Morton's patch scripts: |
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
80 | http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/ |
81 | Instead of these scripts, quilt is the recommended patch management | |
82 | tool (see above). | |
84da7c08 RD |
83 | |
84 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
85 | |
86 | 2) Describe your changes. | |
87 | ||
88 | Describe the technical detail of the change(s) your patch includes. | |
89 | ||
90 | Be as specific as possible. The WORST descriptions possible include | |
91 | things like "update driver X", "bug fix for driver X", or "this patch | |
92 | includes updates for subsystem X. Please apply." | |
93 | ||
94 | If your description starts to get long, that's a sign that you probably | |
95 | need to split up your patch. See #3, next. | |
96 | ||
97 | ||
98 | ||
99 | 3) Separate your changes. | |
100 | ||
5b0ed2c6 | 101 | Separate _logical changes_ into a single patch file. |
1da177e4 LT |
102 | |
103 | For example, if your changes include both bug fixes and performance | |
104 | enhancements for a single driver, separate those changes into two | |
105 | or more patches. If your changes include an API update, and a new | |
106 | driver which uses that new API, separate those into two patches. | |
107 | ||
108 | On the other hand, if you make a single change to numerous files, | |
109 | group those changes into a single patch. Thus a single logical change | |
110 | is contained within a single patch. | |
111 | ||
112 | If one patch depends on another patch in order for a change to be | |
113 | complete, that is OK. Simply note "this patch depends on patch X" | |
114 | in your patch description. | |
115 | ||
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
116 | If you cannot condense your patch set into a smaller set of patches, |
117 | then only post say 15 or so at a time and wait for review and integration. | |
118 | ||
119 | ||
1da177e4 | 120 | |
0a920b5b AW |
121 | 4) Style check your changes. |
122 | ||
123 | Check your patch for basic style violations, details of which can be | |
124 | found in Documentation/CodingStyle. Failure to do so simply wastes | |
f56d35e7 | 125 | the reviewers time and will get your patch rejected, probably |
0a920b5b AW |
126 | without even being read. |
127 | ||
128 | At a minimum you should check your patches with the patch style | |
a570ab6f | 129 | checker prior to submission (scripts/checkpatch.pl). You should |
0a920b5b AW |
130 | be able to justify all violations that remain in your patch. |
131 | ||
132 | ||
133 | ||
134 | 5) Select e-mail destination. | |
1da177e4 LT |
135 | |
136 | Look through the MAINTAINERS file and the source code, and determine | |
137 | if your change applies to a specific subsystem of the kernel, with | |
138 | an assigned maintainer. If so, e-mail that person. | |
139 | ||
140 | If no maintainer is listed, or the maintainer does not respond, send | |
141 | your patch to the primary Linux kernel developer's mailing list, | |
142 | linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org. Most kernel developers monitor this | |
143 | e-mail list, and can comment on your changes. | |
144 | ||
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
145 | |
146 | Do not send more than 15 patches at once to the vger mailing lists!!! | |
147 | ||
148 | ||
1da177e4 | 149 | Linus Torvalds is the final arbiter of all changes accepted into the |
99ddcc7e LT |
150 | Linux kernel. His e-mail address is <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>. |
151 | He gets a lot of e-mail, so typically you should do your best to -avoid- | |
152 | sending him e-mail. | |
1da177e4 LT |
153 | |
154 | Patches which are bug fixes, are "obvious" changes, or similarly | |
155 | require little discussion should be sent or CC'd to Linus. Patches | |
156 | which require discussion or do not have a clear advantage should | |
157 | usually be sent first to linux-kernel. Only after the patch is | |
158 | discussed should the patch then be submitted to Linus. | |
159 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
160 | |
161 | ||
0a920b5b | 162 | 6) Select your CC (e-mail carbon copy) list. |
1da177e4 LT |
163 | |
164 | Unless you have a reason NOT to do so, CC linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org. | |
165 | ||
166 | Other kernel developers besides Linus need to be aware of your change, | |
167 | so that they may comment on it and offer code review and suggestions. | |
168 | linux-kernel is the primary Linux kernel developer mailing list. | |
169 | Other mailing lists are available for specific subsystems, such as | |
170 | USB, framebuffer devices, the VFS, the SCSI subsystem, etc. See the | |
171 | MAINTAINERS file for a mailing list that relates specifically to | |
172 | your change. | |
173 | ||
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
174 | Majordomo lists of VGER.KERNEL.ORG at: |
175 | <http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html> | |
176 | ||
1caf1f0f PJ |
177 | If changes affect userland-kernel interfaces, please send |
178 | the MAN-PAGES maintainer (as listed in the MAINTAINERS file) | |
179 | a man-pages patch, or at least a notification of the change, | |
180 | so that some information makes its way into the manual pages. | |
181 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
182 | Even if the maintainer did not respond in step #4, make sure to ALWAYS |
183 | copy the maintainer when you change their code. | |
184 | ||
185 | For small patches you may want to CC the Trivial Patch Monkey | |
f62870db | 186 | trivial@kernel.org managed by Adrian Bunk; which collects "trivial" |
1da177e4 LT |
187 | patches. Trivial patches must qualify for one of the following rules: |
188 | Spelling fixes in documentation | |
8e9cb8fd | 189 | Spelling fixes which could break grep(1) |
1da177e4 LT |
190 | Warning fixes (cluttering with useless warnings is bad) |
191 | Compilation fixes (only if they are actually correct) | |
192 | Runtime fixes (only if they actually fix things) | |
8e9cb8fd | 193 | Removing use of deprecated functions/macros (eg. check_region) |
1da177e4 LT |
194 | Contact detail and documentation fixes |
195 | Non-portable code replaced by portable code (even in arch-specific, | |
196 | since people copy, as long as it's trivial) | |
8e9cb8fd | 197 | Any fix by the author/maintainer of the file (ie. patch monkey |
1da177e4 | 198 | in re-transmission mode) |
f62870db | 199 | URL: <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/bunk/trivial/> |
84da7c08 | 200 | |
1da177e4 LT |
201 | |
202 | ||
0a920b5b | 203 | 7) No MIME, no links, no compression, no attachments. Just plain text. |
1da177e4 LT |
204 | |
205 | Linus and other kernel developers need to be able to read and comment | |
206 | on the changes you are submitting. It is important for a kernel | |
207 | developer to be able to "quote" your changes, using standard e-mail | |
208 | tools, so that they may comment on specific portions of your code. | |
209 | ||
210 | For this reason, all patches should be submitting e-mail "inline". | |
211 | WARNING: Be wary of your editor's word-wrap corrupting your patch, | |
212 | if you choose to cut-n-paste your patch. | |
213 | ||
214 | Do not attach the patch as a MIME attachment, compressed or not. | |
215 | Many popular e-mail applications will not always transmit a MIME | |
216 | attachment as plain text, making it impossible to comment on your | |
217 | code. A MIME attachment also takes Linus a bit more time to process, | |
218 | decreasing the likelihood of your MIME-attached change being accepted. | |
219 | ||
220 | Exception: If your mailer is mangling patches then someone may ask | |
221 | you to re-send them using MIME. | |
222 | ||
223 | ||
683e91cb KK |
224 | WARNING: Some mailers like Mozilla send your messages with |
225 | ---- message header ---- | |
226 | Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed | |
227 | ---- message header ---- | |
228 | The problem is that "format=flowed" makes some of the mailers | |
229 | on receiving side to replace TABs with spaces and do similar | |
230 | changes. Thus the patches from you can look corrupted. | |
231 | ||
232 | To fix this just make your mozilla defaults/pref/mailnews.js file to look like: | |
233 | pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false); // RFC 2646======= | |
234 | pref("mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support", true); | |
235 | ||
236 | ||
1da177e4 | 237 | |
0a920b5b | 238 | 8) E-mail size. |
1da177e4 | 239 | |
0a920b5b | 240 | When sending patches to Linus, always follow step #7. |
1da177e4 LT |
241 | |
242 | Large changes are not appropriate for mailing lists, and some | |
243 | maintainers. If your patch, uncompressed, exceeds 40 kB in size, | |
244 | it is preferred that you store your patch on an Internet-accessible | |
245 | server, and provide instead a URL (link) pointing to your patch. | |
246 | ||
247 | ||
248 | ||
0a920b5b | 249 | 9) Name your kernel version. |
1da177e4 LT |
250 | |
251 | It is important to note, either in the subject line or in the patch | |
252 | description, the kernel version to which this patch applies. | |
253 | ||
254 | If the patch does not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version, | |
255 | Linus will not apply it. | |
256 | ||
257 | ||
258 | ||
0a920b5b | 259 | 10) Don't get discouraged. Re-submit. |
1da177e4 LT |
260 | |
261 | After you have submitted your change, be patient and wait. If Linus | |
262 | likes your change and applies it, it will appear in the next version | |
263 | of the kernel that he releases. | |
264 | ||
265 | However, if your change doesn't appear in the next version of the | |
266 | kernel, there could be any number of reasons. It's YOUR job to | |
267 | narrow down those reasons, correct what was wrong, and submit your | |
268 | updated change. | |
269 | ||
270 | It is quite common for Linus to "drop" your patch without comment. | |
271 | That's the nature of the system. If he drops your patch, it could be | |
272 | due to | |
8e9cb8fd | 273 | * Your patch did not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version. |
1da177e4 | 274 | * Your patch was not sufficiently discussed on linux-kernel. |
8e9cb8fd PM |
275 | * A style issue (see section 2). |
276 | * An e-mail formatting issue (re-read this section). | |
277 | * A technical problem with your change. | |
278 | * He gets tons of e-mail, and yours got lost in the shuffle. | |
279 | * You are being annoying. | |
1da177e4 LT |
280 | |
281 | When in doubt, solicit comments on linux-kernel mailing list. | |
282 | ||
283 | ||
284 | ||
0a920b5b | 285 | 11) Include PATCH in the subject |
1da177e4 LT |
286 | |
287 | Due to high e-mail traffic to Linus, and to linux-kernel, it is common | |
288 | convention to prefix your subject line with [PATCH]. This lets Linus | |
289 | and other kernel developers more easily distinguish patches from other | |
290 | e-mail discussions. | |
291 | ||
292 | ||
293 | ||
0a920b5b | 294 | 12) Sign your work |
1da177e4 LT |
295 | |
296 | To improve tracking of who did what, especially with patches that can | |
297 | percolate to their final resting place in the kernel through several | |
298 | layers of maintainers, we've introduced a "sign-off" procedure on | |
299 | patches that are being emailed around. | |
300 | ||
301 | The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for the | |
302 | patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have the right to | |
303 | pass it on as a open-source patch. The rules are pretty simple: if you | |
304 | can certify the below: | |
305 | ||
cbd83da8 | 306 | Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1 |
1da177e4 LT |
307 | |
308 | By making a contribution to this project, I certify that: | |
309 | ||
310 | (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I | |
311 | have the right to submit it under the open source license | |
312 | indicated in the file; or | |
313 | ||
314 | (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best | |
315 | of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source | |
316 | license and I have the right under that license to submit that | |
317 | work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part | |
318 | by me, under the same open source license (unless I am | |
319 | permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated | |
320 | in the file; or | |
321 | ||
322 | (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other | |
323 | person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified | |
324 | it. | |
325 | ||
cbd83da8 LT |
326 | (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution |
327 | are public and that a record of the contribution (including all | |
328 | personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is | |
329 | maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with | |
330 | this project or the open source license(s) involved. | |
331 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
332 | then you just add a line saying |
333 | ||
9fd5559c | 334 | Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org> |
1da177e4 | 335 | |
af45f32d GK |
336 | using your real name (sorry, no pseudonyms or anonymous contributions.) |
337 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
338 | Some people also put extra tags at the end. They'll just be ignored for |
339 | now, but you can do this to mark internal company procedures or just | |
340 | point out some special detail about the sign-off. | |
341 | ||
342 | ||
0f44cd23 | 343 | 13) When to use Acked-by: |
0a920b5b | 344 | |
0f44cd23 AM |
345 | The Signed-off-by: tag indicates that the signer was involved in the |
346 | development of the patch, or that he/she was in the patch's delivery path. | |
347 | ||
348 | If a person was not directly involved in the preparation or handling of a | |
349 | patch but wishes to signify and record their approval of it then they can | |
350 | arrange to have an Acked-by: line added to the patch's changelog. | |
351 | ||
352 | Acked-by: is often used by the maintainer of the affected code when that | |
353 | maintainer neither contributed to nor forwarded the patch. | |
354 | ||
355 | Acked-by: is not as formal as Signed-off-by:. It is a record that the acker | |
356 | has at least reviewed the patch and has indicated acceptance. Hence patch | |
357 | mergers will sometimes manually convert an acker's "yep, looks good to me" | |
358 | into an Acked-by:. | |
359 | ||
360 | Acked-by: does not necessarily indicate acknowledgement of the entire patch. | |
361 | For example, if a patch affects multiple subsystems and has an Acked-by: from | |
362 | one subsystem maintainer then this usually indicates acknowledgement of just | |
363 | the part which affects that maintainer's code. Judgement should be used here. | |
364 | When in doubt people should refer to the original discussion in the mailing | |
365 | list archives. | |
366 | ||
367 | ||
368 | 14) The canonical patch format | |
84da7c08 | 369 | |
75f8426c PJ |
370 | The canonical patch subject line is: |
371 | ||
d6b9acc0 | 372 | Subject: [PATCH 001/123] subsystem: summary phrase |
75f8426c PJ |
373 | |
374 | The canonical patch message body contains the following: | |
375 | ||
376 | - A "from" line specifying the patch author. | |
377 | ||
378 | - An empty line. | |
379 | ||
380 | - The body of the explanation, which will be copied to the | |
381 | permanent changelog to describe this patch. | |
382 | ||
383 | - The "Signed-off-by:" lines, described above, which will | |
384 | also go in the changelog. | |
385 | ||
386 | - A marker line containing simply "---". | |
387 | ||
388 | - Any additional comments not suitable for the changelog. | |
389 | ||
390 | - The actual patch (diff output). | |
391 | ||
392 | The Subject line format makes it very easy to sort the emails | |
393 | alphabetically by subject line - pretty much any email reader will | |
394 | support that - since because the sequence number is zero-padded, | |
395 | the numerical and alphabetic sort is the same. | |
396 | ||
d6b9acc0 PJ |
397 | The "subsystem" in the email's Subject should identify which |
398 | area or subsystem of the kernel is being patched. | |
399 | ||
400 | The "summary phrase" in the email's Subject should concisely | |
401 | describe the patch which that email contains. The "summary | |
402 | phrase" should not be a filename. Do not use the same "summary | |
66effdc6 RD |
403 | phrase" for every patch in a whole patch series (where a "patch |
404 | series" is an ordered sequence of multiple, related patches). | |
d6b9acc0 PJ |
405 | |
406 | Bear in mind that the "summary phrase" of your email becomes | |
407 | a globally-unique identifier for that patch. It propagates | |
408 | all the way into the git changelog. The "summary phrase" may | |
409 | later be used in developer discussions which refer to the patch. | |
410 | People will want to google for the "summary phrase" to read | |
411 | discussion regarding that patch. | |
412 | ||
413 | A couple of example Subjects: | |
414 | ||
415 | Subject: [patch 2/5] ext2: improve scalability of bitmap searching | |
416 | Subject: [PATCHv2 001/207] x86: fix eflags tracking | |
75f8426c PJ |
417 | |
418 | The "from" line must be the very first line in the message body, | |
419 | and has the form: | |
420 | ||
421 | From: Original Author <author@example.com> | |
422 | ||
423 | The "from" line specifies who will be credited as the author of the | |
424 | patch in the permanent changelog. If the "from" line is missing, | |
425 | then the "From:" line from the email header will be used to determine | |
426 | the patch author in the changelog. | |
427 | ||
428 | The explanation body will be committed to the permanent source | |
429 | changelog, so should make sense to a competent reader who has long | |
430 | since forgotten the immediate details of the discussion that might | |
431 | have led to this patch. | |
432 | ||
433 | The "---" marker line serves the essential purpose of marking for patch | |
434 | handling tools where the changelog message ends. | |
435 | ||
436 | One good use for the additional comments after the "---" marker is for | |
437 | a diffstat, to show what files have changed, and the number of inserted | |
438 | and deleted lines per file. A diffstat is especially useful on bigger | |
439 | patches. Other comments relevant only to the moment or the maintainer, | |
440 | not suitable for the permanent changelog, should also go here. | |
58591e8a RD |
441 | Use diffstat options "-p 1 -w 70" so that filenames are listed from the |
442 | top of the kernel source tree and don't use too much horizontal space | |
443 | (easily fit in 80 columns, maybe with some indentation). | |
75f8426c PJ |
444 | |
445 | See more details on the proper patch format in the following | |
446 | references. | |
447 | ||
448 | ||
84da7c08 RD |
449 | |
450 | ||
1da177e4 LT |
451 | ----------------------------------- |
452 | SECTION 2 - HINTS, TIPS, AND TRICKS | |
453 | ----------------------------------- | |
454 | ||
455 | This section lists many of the common "rules" associated with code | |
456 | submitted to the kernel. There are always exceptions... but you must | |
457 | have a really good reason for doing so. You could probably call this | |
458 | section Linus Computer Science 101. | |
459 | ||
460 | ||
461 | ||
462 | 1) Read Documentation/CodingStyle | |
463 | ||
464 | Nuff said. If your code deviates too much from this, it is likely | |
465 | to be rejected without further review, and without comment. | |
466 | ||
de7d4f0e AW |
467 | Once significant exception is when moving code from one file to |
468 | another in this case you should not modify the moved code at all in | |
469 | the same patch which moves it. This clearly delineates the act of | |
470 | moving the code and your changes. This greatly aids review of the | |
471 | actual differences and allows tools to better track the history of | |
472 | the code itself. | |
473 | ||
0a920b5b | 474 | Check your patches with the patch style checker prior to submission |
de7d4f0e AW |
475 | (scripts/checkpatch.pl). The style checker should be viewed as |
476 | a guide not as the final word. If your code looks better with | |
477 | a violation then its probably best left alone. | |
478 | ||
479 | The checker reports at three levels: | |
480 | - ERROR: things that are very likely to be wrong | |
481 | - WARNING: things requiring careful review | |
482 | - CHECK: things requiring thought | |
483 | ||
484 | You should be able to justify all violations that remain in your | |
485 | patch. | |
0a920b5b | 486 | |
1da177e4 LT |
487 | |
488 | ||
489 | 2) #ifdefs are ugly | |
490 | ||
491 | Code cluttered with ifdefs is difficult to read and maintain. Don't do | |
492 | it. Instead, put your ifdefs in a header, and conditionally define | |
493 | 'static inline' functions, or macros, which are used in the code. | |
494 | Let the compiler optimize away the "no-op" case. | |
495 | ||
496 | Simple example, of poor code: | |
497 | ||
498 | dev = alloc_etherdev (sizeof(struct funky_private)); | |
499 | if (!dev) | |
500 | return -ENODEV; | |
501 | #ifdef CONFIG_NET_FUNKINESS | |
502 | init_funky_net(dev); | |
503 | #endif | |
504 | ||
505 | Cleaned-up example: | |
506 | ||
507 | (in header) | |
508 | #ifndef CONFIG_NET_FUNKINESS | |
509 | static inline void init_funky_net (struct net_device *d) {} | |
510 | #endif | |
511 | ||
512 | (in the code itself) | |
513 | dev = alloc_etherdev (sizeof(struct funky_private)); | |
514 | if (!dev) | |
515 | return -ENODEV; | |
516 | init_funky_net(dev); | |
517 | ||
518 | ||
519 | ||
520 | 3) 'static inline' is better than a macro | |
521 | ||
522 | Static inline functions are greatly preferred over macros. | |
523 | They provide type safety, have no length limitations, no formatting | |
524 | limitations, and under gcc they are as cheap as macros. | |
525 | ||
526 | Macros should only be used for cases where a static inline is clearly | |
527 | suboptimal [there a few, isolated cases of this in fast paths], | |
528 | or where it is impossible to use a static inline function [such as | |
529 | string-izing]. | |
530 | ||
531 | 'static inline' is preferred over 'static __inline__', 'extern inline', | |
532 | and 'extern __inline__'. | |
533 | ||
534 | ||
535 | ||
536 | 4) Don't over-design. | |
537 | ||
538 | Don't try to anticipate nebulous future cases which may or may not | |
84da7c08 | 539 | be useful: "Make it as simple as you can, and no simpler." |
1da177e4 | 540 | |
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
541 | |
542 | ||
543 | ---------------------- | |
544 | SECTION 3 - REFERENCES | |
545 | ---------------------- | |
546 | ||
547 | Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp). | |
548 | <http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt> | |
549 | ||
8e9cb8fd | 550 | Jeff Garzik, "Linux kernel patch submission format". |
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
551 | <http://linux.yyz.us/patch-format.html> |
552 | ||
8e9cb8fd | 553 | Greg Kroah-Hartman, "How to piss off a kernel subsystem maintainer". |
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
554 | <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/03/31/> |
555 | <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/07/08/> | |
556 | <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/10/19/> | |
e1b114ee | 557 | <http://www.kroah.com/log/2006/01/11/> |
5b0ed2c6 | 558 | |
bc7455fa | 559 | NO!!!! No more huge patch bombs to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org people! |
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
560 | <http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=112112749912944&w=2> |
561 | ||
8e9cb8fd | 562 | Kernel Documentation/CodingStyle: |
4db29c17 | 563 | <http://users.sosdg.org/~qiyong/lxr/source/Documentation/CodingStyle> |
5b0ed2c6 | 564 | |
8e9cb8fd | 565 | Linus Torvalds's mail on the canonical patch format: |
5b0ed2c6 XVP |
566 | <http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/7/183> |
567 | -- |