Re: [libvirt] [GSoC] Code design for scalar and external types

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 12:54:54PM +0200, Andrea Bolognani wrote: > On Mon, 2018-06-11 at 12:12 +0200, Pavel Hrdina wrote: > > That way we can use any existing free function regardless whether it > > checks if the variable is NULL or not and without the need to manually > > define new type. > > > > The only exception would be the virStringList where we would have to use > > the different type. > > As danpb (CC'd) mentioned in [1], having the vir*Free() function > take a double pointer is good because it allows it to also set it > to NULL. I will add that any vir*Free() function that doesn't deal > gracefully with being passed a NULL pointer is already buggy and > should be fixed. > > This new proposal would not deal with either, and it seems to me > like it would be preferable to stick with the original one and, as > a prerequisite, change all vir*Free() functions so that they follow > the design outlined above, as doing so would benefit all code that > still needs to perform manual memory management as well. > > Are there any known issues that would make such an approach not > feasible? Would it expand the scope of the project too much? You've missed the whole reason for this new proposal. Yes, we can fix our internal vir*Free() functions but this autofree functionality would be nice also for types from external libraries where the types have their own free function and that we cannot fix.