From: Pekka J Enberg This patch adds a new chapter on memory allocation to Documentation/CodingStyle. Signed-off-by: Pekka Enberg Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton --- Documentation/CodingStyle | 21 ++++++++++++++++++++- 1 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff -puN Documentation/CodingStyle~codingstyle-memory-allocation Documentation/CodingStyle --- devel/Documentation/CodingStyle~codingstyle-memory-allocation 2005-09-13 18:05:28.000000000 -0700 +++ devel-akpm/Documentation/CodingStyle 2005-09-13 18:05:28.000000000 -0700 @@ -410,7 +410,26 @@ Kernel messages do not have to be termin Printing numbers in parentheses (%d) adds no value and should be avoided. - Chapter 13: References + Chapter 13: Allocating memory + +The kernel provides the following general purpose memory allocators: +kmalloc(), kzalloc(), kcalloc(), and vmalloc(). Please refer to the API +documentation for further information about them. + +The preferred form for passing a size of a struct is the following: + + p = kmalloc(sizeof(*p), ...); + +The alternative form where struct name is spelled out hurts readability and +introduces an opportunity for a bug when the pointer variable type is changed +but the corresponding sizeof that is passed to a memory allocator is not. + +Casting the return value which is a void pointer is redundant. The conversion +from void pointer to any other pointer type is guaranteed by the C programming +language. + + + Chapter 14: References The C Programming Language, Second Edition by Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. _