The part of the documentation of DeviceClass that talks about instance_init is partly wrong: instance_init() functions must not abort or exit, since the function is also called during introspection of the device already. So if a device calls exit() during its instance_init() function, QEMU terminates unexpectedly if somebody tries to just have a look at the interfaces from the device with "device_add xyz,help" or with the "device-list-properties" QOM command. This should never happen.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Huth <th...@redhat.com> --- include/hw/qdev-core.h | 5 +++-- 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/include/hw/qdev-core.h b/include/hw/qdev-core.h index f1fd0f8..a24d0dd 100644 --- a/include/hw/qdev-core.h +++ b/include/hw/qdev-core.h @@ -51,8 +51,9 @@ struct VMStateDescription; * Devices are constructed in two stages, * 1) object instantiation via object_initialize() and * 2) device realization via #DeviceState:realized property. - * The former may not fail (it might assert or exit), the latter may return - * error information to the caller and must be re-entrant. + * The former may not fail (and must not abort or exit, since it is called + * during device introspection already), and the latter may return error + * information to the caller and must be re-entrant. * Trivial field initializations should go into #TypeInfo.instance_init. * Operations depending on @props static properties should go into @realize. * After successful realization, setting static properties will fail. -- 1.8.3.1
