Re: [PATCH] platform/x86: dell-smbios: make a function and a pointer static

[Julia Lawall]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2018, Darren Hart wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 21, 2018 at 07:15:24PM +0100, Colin King wrote:
> > From: Colin Ian King <colin.king@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > The function dell_smbios_smm_call and pointer platform_device are
> > local to the source and do not need to be in global scope, so make
> > them static.
> >
> > Cleans up sparse warnings:
> > warning: symbol 'platform_device' was not declared. Should it be static?
> > warning: symbol 'dell_smbios_smm_call' was not declared. Should it be
> > static?
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Colin Ian King <colin.king@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >  drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c | 4 ++--
> >  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c b/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c
> > index e9e9da556318..97a90bebc360 100644
> > --- a/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c
> > +++ b/drivers/platform/x86/dell-smbios-smm.c
> > @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@
> >  static int da_command_address;
> >  static int da_command_code;
> >  static struct calling_interface_buffer *buffer;
> > -struct platform_device *platform_device;
> > +static struct platform_device *platform_device;
> >  static DEFINE_MUTEX(smm_mutex);
> >
> >  static const struct dmi_system_id dell_device_table[] __initconst = {
> > @@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ static void find_cmd_address(const struct dmi_header *dm, void *dummy)
> >  	}
> >  }
> >
> > -int dell_smbios_smm_call(struct calling_interface_buffer *input)
> > +static int dell_smbios_smm_call(struct calling_interface_buffer *input)
>
> Hrm. So these are passed by pointer to dell_smbios_register_device(), which is in
> turn called by dell_smbios_call() from dell-smbios-base.c.
>
> So while it is valid to make these static, since we're not referencing the
> symbol, but the pointer value instead - I do worry about the "static" suggesting
> to someone reading the code that this data is not used outside of this file,
> when it is.

Static protects the name.  The name in this case is very generic.

julia

>
> I'm not finding a position on this in coding-style.
>
> Andy, do you care to weigh in on this?
>
> --
> Darren Hart
> VMware Open Source Technology Center
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