[PATCH] CodingStyle: memory allocation
This patch adds a new chapter on memory allocation to
Documentation/CodingStyle.
Signed-off-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
diff --git a/Documentation/CodingStyle b/Documentation/CodingStyle
index 22e5f90..eb7db3c 100644
--- a/Documentation/CodingStyle
+++ b/Documentation/CodingStyle
@@ -410,7 +410,26 @@
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.