Zack's Kernel News
Zack's Kernel News
Chronicler Zack Brown reports on the latest news, views, dilemmas, and developments within the Linux kernel community.
Bogus GCC Warnings Reveal Real Kernel Problem
Linus Torvalds recently took great pains to explain why even though a particular GCC warning resulted in identifying a true problem with the kernel code, the warning itself was nevertheless bogus and insane. In fact, he said, most of the warnings introduced in GCC 5.1 didn't seem so valuable to him.
The one that had caught his attention, though, was a warning against using a switch statement with a Boolean variable. Presumably, the GCC folks thought that the whole point of switch was to operate on several possible values using a simple coding structure, and thus avoid long if/else/if chains. They may have thought that for a Boolean variable, a simple if statement would be the only appropriate way to go.
In the case of this particular bit of kernel code, said Linus, the warning was good because the switch statement in the kernel used a Boolean variable, whereas the case statements did not. He felt that this would be a perfectly legitimate thing for GCC to issue warnings about. But, if the switch and case statements both used a Boolean variable, he said, it would be a perfectly fine use case, and might even be better than the equivalent if/else in some cases:
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
There's a New Linux AI Assistant in Town
Newelle is a Linux AI assistant that can work with different LLMs and includes document parsing and profiles.
-
Linux Kernel 6.16 Released with Minor Fixes
The latest Linux kernel doesn't really include any big-ticket features, just a lot of lines of code.
-
EU Sovereign Tech Fund Gains Traction
OpenForum Europe recently released a report regarding a sovereign tech fund with backing from several significant entities.
-
FreeBSD Promises a Full Desktop Installer
FreeBSD has lacked an option to include a full desktop environment during installation.
-
Linux Hits an Important Milestone
If you pay attention to the news in the Linux-sphere, you've probably heard that the open source operating system recently crashed through a ceiling no one thought possible.
-
Plasma Bigscreen Returns
A developer discovered that the Plasma Bigscreen feature had been sitting untouched, so he decided to do something about it.
-
CachyOS Now Lets Users Choose Their Shell
Imagine getting the opportunity to select which shell you want during the installation of your favorite Linux distribution. That's now a thing.
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.