+
+- Command line option parsing:
+ - Do not print full help() on error, be specific about the error.
+ - Do not print messages to stdout on error.
+ - Do not POSIX_ME_HARDER unless necessary, i.e. avoid "+" in option string.
+
+- Do not write functions that clobber call-by-reference variables on
+ failure. Use temporary variables for these cases and change the
+ passed in variables only on success.
+
+- When you allocate a file descriptor, it should be made O_CLOEXEC
+ right from the beginning, as none of our files should leak to forked
+ binaries by default. Hence, whenever you open a file, O_CLOEXEC must
+ be specified, right from the beginning. This also applies to
+ sockets. Effectively this means that all invocations to:
+
+ a) open() must get O_CLOEXEC passed
+ b) socket() and socketpair() must get SOCK_CLOEXEC passed
+ c) recvmsg() must get MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC set
+ d) F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC should be used instead of F_DUPFD, and so on
+
+- We never use the POSIX version of basename() (which glibc defines it in
+ libgen.h), only the GNU version (which glibc defines in string.h).
+ The only reason to include libgen.h is because dirname()
+ is needed. Everytime you need that please immediately undefine
+ basename(), and add a comment about it, so that no code ever ends up
+ using the POSIX version!
+
+- Use the bool type for booleans, not integers. One exception: in public
+ headers (i.e those in src/systemd/sd-*.h) use integers after all, as "bool"
+ is C99 and in our public APIs we try to stick to C89 (with a few extension).
+
+- When you invoke certain calls like unlink(), or mkdir_p() and you
+ know it is safe to ignore the error it might return (because a later
+ call would detect the failure anyway, or because the error is in an
+ error path and you thus couldn't do anything about it anyway), then
+ make this clear by casting the invocation explicitly to (void). Code
+ checks like Coverity understand that, and will not complain about
+ ignored error codes. Hence, please use this:
+
+ (void) unlink("/foo/bar/baz");
+
+ instead of just this:
+
+ unlink("/foo/bar/baz");
+
+- Don't invoke exit(), ever. It is not replacement for proper error
+ handling. Please escalate errors up your call chain, and use normal
+ "return" to exit from the main function of a process. If you
+ fork()ed off a child process, please use _exit() instead of exit(),
+ so that the exit handlers are not run.
+
+- Please never use dup(). Use fcntl(fd, F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC, 3)
+ instead. For two reason: first, you want O_CLOEXEC set on the new fd
+ (see above). Second, dup() will happily duplicate your fd as 0, 1,
+ 2, i.e. stdin, stdout, stderr, should those fds be closed. Given the
+ special semantics of those fds, it's probably a good idea to avoid
+ them. F_DUPFD_CLOEXEC with "3" as parameter avoids them.
+
+- When you define a destructor or unref() call for an object, please
+ accept a NULL object and simply treat this as NOP. This is similar
+ to how libc free() works, which accepts NULL pointers and becomes a
+ NOP for them. By following this scheme a lot of if checks can be
+ removed before invoking your destructor, which makes the code
+ substantially more readable and robust.
+
+- Related to this: when you define a destructor or unref() call for an
+ object, please make it return the same type it takes and always
+ return NULL from it. This allows writing code like this:
+
+ p = foobar_unref(p);
+
+ which will always work regardless if p is initialized or not, and
+ guarantees that p is NULL afterwards, all in just one line.
+
+- Use alloca(), but never forget that it is not OK to invoke alloca()
+ within a loop or within function call parameters. alloca() memory is
+ released at the end of a function, and not at the end of a {}
+ block. Thus, if you invoke it in a loop, you keep increasing the
+ stack pointer without ever releasing memory again. (VLAs have better
+ behaviour in this case, so consider using them as an alternative.)
+ Regarding not using alloca() within function parameters, see the
+ BUGS section of the alloca(3) man page.
+
+- Use memzero() or even better zero() instead of memset(..., 0, ...)
+
+- Instead of using memzero()/memset() to initialize structs allocated
+ on the stack, please try to use c99 structure initializers. It's
+ short, prettier and actually even faster at execution. Hence:
+
+ struct foobar t = {
+ .foo = 7,
+ .bar = "bazz",
+ };
+
+ instead of:
+
+ struct foobar t;
+ zero(t);
+ t.foo = 7;
+ t.bar = "bazz";
+
+- When returning a return code from main(), please preferably use
+ EXIT_FAILURE and EXIT_SUCCESS as defined by libc.
+
+- The order in which header files are included doesn't matter too
+ much. systemd-internal headers must not rely on an include order, so
+ it is safe to include them in any order possible.
+ However, to not clutter global includes, and to make sure internal
+ definitions will not affect global headers, please always include the
+ headers of external components first (these are all headers enclosed
+ in <>), followed by our own exported headers (usually everything
+ that's prefixed by "sd-"), and then followed by internal headers.
+ Furthermore, in all three groups, order all includes alphabetically
+ so duplicate includes can easily be detected.
+
+- To implement an endless loop, use "for (;;)" rather than "while
+ (1)". The latter is a bit ugly anyway, since you probably really
+ meant "while (true)"... To avoid the discussion what the right
+ always-true expression for an infinite while() loop is our
+ recommendation is to simply write it without any such expression by
+ using "for (;;)".
~ianmdlvl / elogind.git / blobdiff