> From: Bruce Richardson [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, 20 July 2026 14.13 > > On Mon, Jul 20, 2026 at 01:46:02PM +0200, Maxime Leroy wrote: > > The coding style advised against bool in structures, citing space and > > type-size concerns inherited from the Linux kernel. That does not > match > > DPDK practice: bool is already used in over 1400 structure fields > across > > the tree, including core APIs such as rte_flow. Drop the note so the > > style guide reflects actual usage.
The note is still valid, although massively violated. Could we paraphrase the note as an advice/recommendation, instead of completely removing it? The intention is to make developers consider alternatives when adding a Boolean field to a structure. Maybe it could be expanded with a few example alternatives: uint8_t value, or uintN_t value:1 (bitfield). > > > > Signed-off-by: Maxime Leroy <[email protected]> > > --- > > Definite +1 > > Acked-by: Bruce Richardson <[email protected]> > > > doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst | 9 --------- > > 1 file changed, 9 deletions(-) > > > > diff --git a/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst > b/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst > > index 976a1e1de3..11de3bb39a 100644 > > --- a/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst > > +++ b/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst > > @@ -313,15 +313,6 @@ Structure Declarations > > * Use of the structures should be by separate variable declarations > and those declarations must be extern if they are declared in a header > file. > > * Externally visible structure definitions should have the structure > name prefixed by ``rte_`` to avoid namespace collisions. > > > > -.. note:: > > - > > - Avoid using ``bool`` in structures because it wastes space and > > - the type size is unclear. A preferred use of > > - ``bool`` is mainly as a return type from functions that return > true/false, > > - and maybe local variable functions. > > - > > - Ref: `LKML <https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/11/21/384>`_ > > - > > Queues > > ~~~~~~ > > > > -- > > 2.43.0 > >
