Avi Kivity wrote:
The "advantages" of the former over the latter:
(1) Without exceptions (which are fragile in a kernel), the former
can't return an error instead of initializing the Foo.
Don't discount exceptions so fast. They're exactly what makes the code
clearer and more robust.
A very large proportion of error handling consists of:
- detect the error
- undo local changes (freeing memory and unlocking spinlocks)
- propagate the error
Exceptions make that fully automatic. The kernel uses a mix of gotos
and alternate returns which bloat the code and are incredibly error
prone. See the recent 2.6.16.x for examples.
C++ exceptions are much more error prone than C. Well not exactly error
prone, but more non-deterministic.
This is one of the reasons that Software standards allow C++ at lower
levels, e.g. DAL E, but at higher levels, e.g. DAL B, C++ is not
allowed, but C is.
So, one can conclude that a C program can be made more reliable than a
C++ program. One aim of a kernel is reliability.
James
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to [email protected]
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
[Index of Archives]
[Kernel Newbies]
[Netfilter]
[Bugtraq]
[Photo]
[Stuff]
[Gimp]
[Yosemite News]
[MIPS Linux]
[ARM Linux]
[Linux Security]
[Linux RAID]
[Video 4 Linux]
[Linux for the blind]
[Linux Resources]
