coccinelle: Convert comma to semicolons (was Re: [PATCH] checkpatch: Add test for comma use that should be semicolon)

From: Joe Perches
Date: Wed Aug 19 2020 - 19:07:30 EST


On Wed, 2020-08-19 at 14:22 -0700, Joe Perches wrote:
> There are commas used as statement terminations that should typically
> have used semicolons instead. Only direct assignments or use of a single
> function or value on a single line are detected by this test.
>
> e.g.:
> foo = bar(), /* typical use is semicolon not comma */
> bar = baz();
>
> Add an imperfect test to detect these comma uses.
>
> No false positives were found in testing, but many types of false negatives
> are possible.
>
> e.g.:
> foo = bar() + 1, /* comma use, but not direct assignment */
> bar = baz();

Hi.

I recently added a test for this condition to linux's checkpatch.

A similar coccinelle script might be:

$ cat comma.cocci
@@
expression e1;
expression e2;
@@

e1
- ,
+ ;
e2;
$

This works reasonably well but it has several false positives
for declarations like:

$ spatch --sp-file comma.cocci mm/huge_memory.c
diff -u -p a/huge_memory.c b/huge_memory.c
--- a/huge_memory.c
+++ b/huge_memory.c
@@ -2778,7 +2778,7 @@ static unsigned long deferred_split_scan
struct pglist_data *pgdata = NODE_DATA(sc->nid);
struct deferred_split *ds_queue = &pgdata->deferred_split_queue;
unsigned long flags;
- LIST_HEAD(list), *pos, *next;
+ LIST_HEAD(list), *pos; *next;
struct page *page;
int split = 0;
$

Any script improvement suggestions?