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Kernel-doc: Convention: Use a "Return" section to describe return values

Non-void functions should describe their return values in their kernel-doc
comments. Currently, some don't, others do in various forms. For example:
   * Return the result.
   * Return: The result.
   * Returns the result.
   * Returns: the result.
   * Return Value: The result.
   * @return: the result.
   * This function returns the result.
   * It will return the result.

Defining a convention would improve consistency of kernel-doc comments. It
would also help scripts/kernel-doc identify the text describing the return
value of a function. Thus allowing additional checks on the comments, and
suitable highlighting in the generated docs (man pages, html, etc).

So, as a convention, use a section named "Return" to describe the return
value of a function.

Signed-off-by: Yacine Belkadi <yacine.belkadi.1@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>
Signed-off-by: Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz>
This commit is contained in:
Yacine Belkadi 2012-11-26 22:21:23 +01:00 committed by Jiri Kosina
parent 501f9d4c1d
commit e65fe5a914
1 changed files with 10 additions and 3 deletions

View File

@ -64,6 +64,8 @@ Example kernel-doc function comment:
* comment lines.
*
* The longer description can have multiple paragraphs.
*
* Return: Describe the return value of foobar.
*/
The short description following the subject can span multiple lines
@ -78,6 +80,8 @@ If a function parameter is "..." (varargs), it should be listed in
kernel-doc notation as:
* @...: description
The return value, if any, should be described in a dedicated section
named "Return".
Example kernel-doc data structure comment.
@ -222,6 +226,9 @@ only a "*").
"section header:" names must be unique per function (or struct,
union, typedef, enum).
Use the section header "Return" for sections describing the return value
of a function.
Avoid putting a spurious blank line after the function name, or else the
description will be repeated!
@ -237,21 +244,21 @@ patterns, which are highlighted appropriately.
NOTE 1: The multi-line descriptive text you provide does *not* recognize
line breaks, so if you try to format some text nicely, as in:
Return codes
Return:
0 - cool
1 - invalid arg
2 - out of memory
this will all run together and produce:
Return codes 0 - cool 1 - invalid arg 2 - out of memory
Return: 0 - cool 1 - invalid arg 2 - out of memory
NOTE 2: If the descriptive text you provide has lines that begin with
some phrase followed by a colon, each of those phrases will be taken as
a new section heading, which means you should similarly try to avoid text
like:
Return codes:
Return:
0: cool
1: invalid arg
2: out of memory