Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755463Ab1D1LFh (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:05:37 -0400 Received: from ozlabs.org ([203.10.76.45]:49762 "EHLO ozlabs.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752575Ab1D1LFg (ORCPT ); Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:05:36 -0400 From: Rusty Russell To: "H. Peter Anvin" , Steven Rostedt Cc: Thiago Farina , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Alexey Dobriyan , Ingo Molnar , "David S. Miller" , Al Viro , "Ted Ts'o" , Christoph Hellwig Subject: Re: [PATCH] linux/string.h: Introduce streq macro. In-Reply-To: <4DB86163.2070201@zytor.com> References: <1303926576.18763.75.camel@gandalf.stny.rr.com> <4DB86163.2070201@zytor.com> User-Agent: Notmuch/0.3.1 (http://notmuchmail.org) Emacs/23.1.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:00:26 +0930 Message-ID: <878vuvuk6l.fsf@rustcorp.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1751 Lines: 48 On Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:33:07 -0700, "H. Peter Anvin" wrote: > On 04/27/2011 10:49 AM, Steven Rostedt wrote: > > On Tue, 2011-04-26 at 16:45 -0300, Thiago Farina wrote: > >> This macro is arguably more readable than its variants: > >> - !strcmp(a, b) > >> - strcmp(a, b) == 0 > > > > Actually, this was proposed way back in 2002 my Rusty and I did not see > > anyone arguing against it. I wonder why it never was incorporated back > > then? > > > > http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=103284339813100&w=2 > > > > [ added Cc's of some of those that replied to this thread ] > > > > Because !strcmp() is idiomatic C. I proposed it because I *did* find a bug caused by my own misuse of it. Only once in 15 years as an experienced C coder, but a bug is a bug. But why argue; #define it in your code if you want. If enough people do, we'll want to unify it. Personally, I think it's marginal: only those with enough knowledge to avoid the trap anyway will know to use it, and YA kernel-specific piece of knowledge cancels the readability benefit. But who knows, maybe it'll catch on elsewhere too? That would be a win. > It doesn't matter if it is more readable *to you*... learn the language, > please. That API is crap: insulting the user makes us look foolish. And even experienced coders can get hit by bad APIs. The invalidity of this program shocked me recently: #include int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { return isupper(argv[0][0]) ? 1 : 0; } Thanks, Rusty. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/