Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH for-2.12] chardev/char-fe: Allow NULL chardev in qemu_chr_fe_init()

[Thomas Huth]

On 23.03.2018 16:29, Peter Maydell wrote:
> All the functions in char-fe.c handle the CharBackend
> having a NULL Chardev pointer, which means that the
> backend exists but is not connected to anything. The
> exception is qemu_chr_fe_init(), which will crash if
> passed a NULL Chardev pointer argument. This can happen
> for various boards if they're started with 'nodefaults':
>  arm-softmmu/qemu-system-arm -S -nodefaults -M cubieboard
>  riscv32-softmmu/qemu-system-riscv32 -nodefaults -M sifive_e
> 
> Make qemu_chr_fe_init() accept a NULL chardev. This allows
> UART models to handle NULL chardev properties without
> generally needing to special case them or to manually
> create a NullChardev.
> 
> Reported-by: Thomas Huth <address@hidden>
> Signed-off-by: Peter Maydell <address@hidden>
> ---
> This is my proposal for fixing the crashes with -nodefaults.
> I think we should also change hw/char/serial.c to accept
> a NULL Chardev rather than treating it as an error
> ( "Can't create serial device, empty char device"), and
> similarly for any other devices that currently error out
> on NULL chardevs. I'd rather postpone that part til 2.13, though.

Sounds like a good plan.

Reviewed-by: Thomas Huth <address@hidden>