Re: misc/49272 (Patching with Coccinelle?: Deletion of unnecessary checks before specific function calls)

[Markus Elfring <Markus.Elfring%web.de@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR misc/49272; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Markus Elfring <Markus.Elfring%web.de@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost, David Holland <dholland%NetBSD.org@localhost>
Cc: misc-bug-people%netbsd.org@localhost, netbsd-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost, gnats-admin%netbsd.org@localhost
Subject: Re: misc/49272 (Patching with Coccinelle?: Deletion of unnecessary
 checks before specific function calls)
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 08:34:52 +0100

 > There is at best lukewarm enthusiasm for this sort of change in NetBSD,
 > because of the risks of breaking things by accident when massediting.
 
 Such a generated patch can also be split into more pleasing pieces.
 
 
 > Meanwhile, the fact that nobody has taken up this patch in two years is
 > suggestive: probably nobody is going to, and without someone taking the
 > time to crosscheck all the changes (not all the removed checks are in
 > front of free() -- many are other functions that might or might not be
 > null-safe a priori) and also fixing the places where the patches break
 > indentation or other adverse consequences... without someone taking the
 > time there is no realistic chance of this patch being useful.
 
 It seems that you preferred to concentrate your software development
 attention more on other components.
 
 
 > Also, the patch is apparently against -6 and would need hand-merging.
 
 I can repeat the shown update suggestion for newer source file versions
 when the corresponding change acceptance will evolve a bit more as desired.
 How do you think about to give another look to source code analysis results
 from a similar approach?
 
 Regards,
 Markus