RE: kernel style preference trivia: '* const' vs '*const' ?

From: David Laight
Date: Mon Oct 10 2022 - 07:48:48 EST


From: Joe Perches
> Sent: 09 October 2022 17:22
>
> The kernel uses '* const' about 10:1 over '*const'
>
> coding_style and checkpatch don't care one way or another.
>
> Does anyone care if there should be some kernel style preference?

I see a wave of patches to 'correct' all the uses...

> $ git grep -P -oh '\b(?:char|u8)\s*\*\s*const\b' -- '*.[ch]' | \
> sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
> 12450 char * const
> 1357 char *const
> 41 u8 * const
> 17 char* const

That one should be an error.
Consider:
char* const foo, bar;

Fortunately the compiler will find those.

I'd guess 'char* foo' is already an error?

Which makes me think the * ought to be as close as possible
to the variable/field name.
So perhaps 'char *const foo' should be ok.

David

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