Are you referring to this section of code (before the region affected
by your patch)?
if (!kobject_get(&data->kobj)) {
spin_unlock_irqrestore(&cpufreq_driver_lock, flags);
cpufreq_debug_enable_ratelimit();
unlock_policy_rwsem_write(cpu);
return -EFAULT;
}
Greg is correct that the kobject_get() here is useless and should be
removed. kobject_get() never returns NULL unless its argument is NULL.
Since &data->kobj can never be NULL, the "if" test will never fail.
Hence there's no point in making the test at all.
The fact that a section of code has existed for a long time doesn't
mean that it is right. :-)
Furthermore, there's no reason to do the kobject_get(). Holding 2
references to a kobject is no better than holding just 1 reference.
Assuming you know that the kobject is still registered, then you also
know that there is already a reference to it. So you have no reason to
take an additional reference.
Alan Stern
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