[PATCH 1/1] checkpatch: Deprecate container_of() in favour of container_of_const()

From: Sakari Ailus
Date: Mon Aug 11 2025 - 04:57:48 EST


container_of() discards constness of its first argument and thus its use
may result in inadvertly unconstifying an object that is const. While
container_of_const() addresses this problem, the vast majority of new uses
of the two use the container_of() variant lacking the check.

Stem the flow of new container_of() use by adding it to the list of
deprecated functions in scripts/checkpatch.pl. Once all existing
container_of() users have been fixed to respect the constness attribute,
the check can be added to container_of() and we can switch back to
container_of() again.

Signed-off-by: Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
scripts/checkpatch.pl | 1 +
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)

diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
index 664f7b7a622c..32edebfc1935 100755
--- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
+++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
@@ -859,6 +859,7 @@ our %deprecated_apis = (
"kunmap_atomic" => "kunmap_local",
"srcu_read_lock_lite" => "srcu_read_lock_fast",
"srcu_read_unlock_lite" => "srcu_read_unlock_fast",
+ "container_of" => "container_of_const",
);

#Create a search pattern for all these strings to speed up a loop below
--
2.39.5