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authorJeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>2005-09-21 22:34:08 -0400
committerJeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>2005-09-21 22:34:08 -0400
commita3536c839f04682ed06c84a7f75968c27c6108c8 (patch)
tree92c26ea74c0ffb9b83a2285ad2539cc271b09856 /Documentation/CodingStyle
parenta33a1982012e9070736e3717231714dc9892303b (diff)
parentefb0372bbaf5b829ff8c39db372779928af542a7 (diff)
Merge /spare/repo/linux-2.6/
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@@ -410,7 +410,26 @@ Kernel messages do not have to be terminated with a period.
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.