Document d_splice_alias() calling conventions for ->lookup() users.

Short version: it does the right thing when given NULL or ERR_PTR(...)
and its calling conventions are chosen to have minimal PITA when
used in ->lookup() instances.

Signed-off-by: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>

diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/porting b/Documentation/filesystems/porting
index 7b7b845c490a4b187183b5acc7dead9e0141c45d..321d74b73937231d0dbf927ec89689082d14fcce 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/filesystems/porting
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/porting
@@ -622,3 +622,14 @@ in your dentry operations instead.
        alloc_file_clone(file, flags, ops) does not affect any caller's references.
        On success you get a new struct file sharing the mount/dentry with the
        original, on failure - ERR_PTR().
+--
+[recommended]
+       ->lookup() instances doing an equivalent of
+               if (IS_ERR(inode))
+                       return ERR_CAST(inode);
+               return d_splice_alias(inode, dentry);
+       don't need to bother with the check - d_splice_alias() will do the
+       right thing when given ERR_PTR(...) as inode.  Moreover, passing NULL
+       inode to d_splice_alias() will also do the right thing (equivalent of
+       d_add(dentry, NULL); return NULL;), so that kind of special cases
+       also doesn't need a separate treatment.