Messages in this thread |  | | | From | Kay Sievers <> | | Date | Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:56:28 +0200 | | Subject | Re: [ofa-general] IB kernel modules and the kobject release() method |
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On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 22:33, Roland Dreier<rdreier@cisco.com> wrote: > > > No, it still makes sense :) > > So what's the fix for this?
The fix is not to embed any kobject/struct device into an object whose lifetime is not controlled by the kobject. The kobject should just be a pointer then, and not inlined in the same memory the object uses, which needs the kobject. The entire kobject embedding/release logic works only properly if the kobject can own/control the lifetime of the enclosing object - if not, it should just not be embedded.
> If even you have trouble understanding > kobject lifetimes
I don't think we have trouble understanding that, but we are hopelessly lost running after people who "optimize" the use of kobjects/struct device to save an allocation or a separate dynamic object.
> and the requirement for a release function, is there > hope for anyone else?
Almost all uses where kobjects/struct device are statically allocated, an object embeds more than a single kobject, or the embedded kobject does not control the lifetime of the enclosing object, is just a mis-use of kobjects.
Not sure, maybe it needs a simpler API to use non-embedded kobjects, to make it easier to reach the originating object from the kobject. That might not be obvious how to do that in some cases.
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