Subject: [PATCH net v2 2/3] docs: netdev: document reverse xmas tree

From: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2022 20:12:08 -0700

Similarly to the 15 patch rule the reverse xmas tree is not
documented.

Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
---
 Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 13 +++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
index 79a10d05031e..8a9dae7a0524 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
@@ -197,6 +197,19 @@ Is the comment style convention different for the networking content?
    * another line of text
    */
 
+What is "reverse xmas tree"?
+----------------------------
+
+Netdev has a convention for ordering local variables in functions.
+Order the variable declaration lines longest to shortest, e.g.::
+
+  struct scatterlist *sg;
+  struct sk_buff *skb;
+  int err, i;
+
+If there are dependencies between the variables preventing the ordering
+move the initialization out of line.
+
 I am working in existing code which uses non-standard formatting. Which formatting should I use?
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Make your code follow the most recent guidelines, so that eventually all code
-- 
2.36.1