[PATCH v4 1/5] efi: Drop the memset() from efi_alloc()

[Tom Rini]

On Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 03:21:22PM -0600, Simon Glass wrote:

> From my inspection none of the users need the memory to be zeroed. It
> is somewhat unexpected that it does so, since the name gives no clue to
> this.
> 
> Drop the memset() so that it effectively becomes a wrapper around the
> normal EFI-pool allocator.
> 
> Another option would be to drop this function and call
> efi_allocate_pool() directly, but that increase code size a little.
> 
> Move the function comment to the header file like most other exported
> functions in U-Boot.
> 
> Comments were made in v3 that another project uses memset() when
> allocating memory, but that is not required by the spec. In any case, as
> above, from inspection, none of the users need the memory to be zeroed,
> as they fill the entire region with their own data.

The other comments made in v3 about another project (EDKII) is that we
want to remain implementation compatible. This is a case where (a) if
needed, we can reach out and get the spec clarified to say zeroed memory
and (b) even if it's not, this is a case where real world
interoperability is more important than strict spec compliance. If
there's an app out there relying on the zeroed behavior and it's fine on
EDKII and not fine on us, it'll be a problem for us because we
stopped matching behavior. So unless in the end Heinrich and/or Ilias
drop their previous objection, I don't think this is a good idea.

-- 
Tom
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