Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] powerpc: kernel: remove useless code which related with 'max_cpus'

From: Michael Ellerman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 11:16:40 +1000

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 08:28:07AM +0800, Chen Gang wrote:
> On 07/23/2013 09:44 PM, Michael Ellerman wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 22, 2013 at 12:21:16PM +0530, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote:
> >> On 07/22/2013 12:10 PM, Chen Gang wrote:
> >>> Since not need 'max_cpus' after the related commit, the related code
> >>> are useless too, need be removed.
> >>>
> >>> The related commit:
> >>>
> >>>   c1aa687 powerpc: Clean up obsolete code relating to decrementer and timebase
> >>>
> >>> The related warning:
> >>>
> >>>   arch/powerpc/kernel/smp.c:323:43: warning: parameter ‘max_cpus’ set but not used [-Wunused-but-set-parameter]
> >>>
> >>> Signed-off-by: Chen Gang <[email-masked]>
> >>
> >> This version looks good.
> > 
> > Agreed.
> > 
> > A good follow up patch, or actually series of patches, would be to
> > change the prototype of smp_ops->probe() to return void, and fix all the
> > implementations to no longer return anything.
> > 
> 
> Hmm... normally, a function need have a return value, it will make it
> more extensible (especially, it is an API which need be implemented in
> various sub modules).

A function doesn't need a return value, and if it needs one in future then
we'll add it then. We don't carry code around "just in case".

> Even though the return value may be useless, now, if the performance is
> not quite important in our case, I still suggest to have it (especially
> each various original implementation already has it).

It's dead code, it should be removed.

cheers