Re: [Qemu-arm] [PATCH 1/5] qom/object: Add a new function object_initialize_as_child()

[Eduardo Habkost]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 06:55:20PM +0200, Thomas Huth wrote:
> On 12.07.2018 18:52, Eduardo Habkost wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 12, 2018 at 05:30:59PM +0200, Thomas Huth wrote:
> >> A lot of code is using the object_initialize() function followed by a call 
> >> to
> >> object_property_add_child() to add the newly initialized object as a child 
> >> of
> >> the current object. Both functions increase the reference counter of the 
> >> new
> >> object, but many spots that call these two functions then forget to drop 
> >> one
> >> of the superfluous references. So the newly created object is often not 
> >> cleaned
> >> up correctly when the parent is destroyed. In the worst case, this can 
> >> cause
> >> crashes, e.g. because device objects are not correctly removed from their
> >> parent_bus.
> >> Since this is a common pattern between many code spots, let's introdcue a
> >> new function that takes care of calling all three required initialization
> >> functions, first object_initialize(), then object_property_add_child() and
> >> finally object_unref().
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Thomas Huth <address@hidden>
> >> ---
> >>  include/qom/object.h | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
> >>  qom/object.c         | 14 ++++++++++++++
> >>  2 files changed, 33 insertions(+)
> >>
> >> diff --git a/include/qom/object.h b/include/qom/object.h
> >> index f3d2308..c1b254c 100644
> >> --- a/include/qom/object.h
> >> +++ b/include/qom/object.h
> >> @@ -749,6 +749,25 @@ int object_set_propv(Object *obj,
> >>  void object_initialize(void *obj, size_t size, const char *typename);
> >>  
> >>  /**
> >> + * object_initialize_as_child:
> >> + * @parentobj: The parent object to add a property to
> >> + * @propname: The name of the property
> >> + * @childobj: A pointer to the memory to be used for the object.
> >> + * @size: The maximum size available at @obj for the object.
> >> + * @type: The name of the type of the object to instantiate.
> >> + * @errp: If an error occurs, a pointer to an area to store the area
> >> + *
> >> + * This function will initialize an object. The memory for the object 
> >> should
> >> + * have already been allocated. The object will then be added as child 
> >> property
> >> + * to a parent with object_property_add_child() function. The returned 
> >> object
> >> + * has a reference count of 1, and will be finalized when the last 
> >> reference is
> >> + * dropped.
> >> + */
> >> +void object_initialize_as_child(Object *parentobj, const char *propname,
> >> +                                void *childobj, size_t size, const char 
> >> *type,
> >> +                                Error **errp);
> > 
> > Why did you use void* instead of Object*?
> 
> That's the same what object_initialize() is doing (see above). Otherwise
> all the callers have to cast their pointers with OBJECT() first.

Why wouldn't the same argument apply to every single function
that takes Object* as argument?  Why the OBJECT macro exists?

-- 
Eduardo