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CodingStyle: Document the exception of not splitting user-visible str…
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…ings, for grepping

Patch reviewers now recommend not splitting long user-visible strings,
such as printk messages, even if they exceed 80 columns.  This avoids
breaking grep.  However, that recommendation did not actually appear
anywhere in Documentation/CodingStyle.

See, for example, the thread at
  http://news.gmane.org/find-root.php?message_id=%3c1312215262.11635.15.camel%40Joe%2dLaptop%3e

Signed-off-by: Josh Triplett <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>
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joshtriplett authored and torvalds committed Aug 6, 2011
1 parent 1117f72 commit 6f76b6f
Showing 1 changed file with 7 additions and 16 deletions.
23 changes: 7 additions & 16 deletions Documentation/CodingStyle
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -80,22 +80,13 @@ available tools.
The limit on the length of lines is 80 columns and this is a strongly
preferred limit.

Statements longer than 80 columns will be broken into sensible chunks.
Descendants are always substantially shorter than the parent and are placed
substantially to the right. The same applies to function headers with a long
argument list. Long strings are as well broken into shorter strings. The
only exception to this is where exceeding 80 columns significantly increases
readability and does not hide information.

void fun(int a, int b, int c)
{
if (condition)
printk(KERN_WARNING "Warning this is a long printk with "
"3 parameters a: %u b: %u "
"c: %u \n", a, b, c);
else
next_statement;
}
Statements longer than 80 columns will be broken into sensible chunks, unless
exceeding 80 columns significantly increases readability and does not hide
information. Descendants are always substantially shorter than the parent and
are placed substantially to the right. The same applies to function headers
with a long argument list. However, never break user-visible strings such as
printk messages, because that breaks the ability to grep for them.


Chapter 3: Placing Braces and Spaces

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