Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 23 of 32 RFC] libxl: use libxl_*_init internally too

[Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ian Campbell writes ("Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH 23 of 32 RFC] libxl: use 
libxl_*_init internally   too"):
> I think the reason is that sometimes they might allocate memory. Many of
> them don't (I don't know about vfb in particular) and I don't know
> whether we prefer consistency in similar functions or avoiding pointless
> return values (I prefer the former so as to avoid needing to change the
> public API in the future when we find that we have introduced a way for
> a function to fail).

Why might they need to allocate memory ?

> Possibly in the new world order (where init ~= memset and setdefaults
> does thework) this will no longer be the case, but then the same will
> become true of the setdefaults function.

Yes.  I think it's OK for setdefaults to be able to fail.

Having infallible init functions is a real boon because it makes the
caller's memory management much easier, because they can always safely
dispose.

Ian.

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