Coding Standards¶

This document outlines the standard C coding conventions expected for the milk project. Consistent conventions help ensure readability, maintainability, and seamless integration of new code or plugins.

General C Code Style¶

Linux Kernel Style: Use the Linux kernel's C coding style as the baseline for indentation and formatting, wherever it doesn't conflict with the rules below.
Short Lines: Keep lines short, generally no more than 80 characters.
Scope limitation: Use code blocks ({ ... }) to reduce the scope of variables as much as possible.

Function Signatures¶

Multi-line Prototypes: Function prototypes with arguments should be formatted across multiple lines, with exactly one line per argument. This greatly improves diff readability and annotation.

inline static errno_t example_compute_sum(
    int a,
    int b,
    char *output
)

Documentation Rules¶

Kernel-Doc Style: Document functions using the standard Kernel-Doc (or Doxygen-compatible) style.
.h Files: Briefly document the function's overall purpose in the header file.
.c Files: Document the purpose and overall approach of the function above the function code in the source file, and detail the methodology within the function itself.

Compilation and Headers¶

Compiler Warnings: Enable and enforce compiler warnings (-Wall, -Wextra) during development to catch missing declarations early. Treat them as errors (-Werror) in CI/CD pipelines.
Explicit Includes: Make sure every .c file strictly includes the exact headers it relies on. Do not implicitly rely on another header to include them (e.g., relying on CLIcore.h to provide <math.h> or <stdlib.h>).

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