Re: [PATCH] libsepol: use bool instead of int in validation functions

On Mon, Aug 17, 2026 at 9:35 AM Stephen Smalley
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 17, 2026 at 8:43 AM Stephen Smalley
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 7:32 PM Kalevi Kolttonen <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > This is an effort to use boolean return values instead of
> > > int in as many libsepol validation functions as possible.
> > > The functions passed to hashtab_map() have been kept as is
> > > to avoid excessive reworking of the codebase.
> > >
> > > The change from int to bool requires adjusting the callers
> > > to invert their return value checking logic. The caller
> > > conversion has been performed to keep the existing logic
> > > intact.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Kalevi Kolttonen <[email protected]>
> >
> > I am hesitant to apply this patch for the following reasons:
> > 1. It changes the semantics of the return type of a function that is
> > exposed to multiple source files,
> > 2. It does not rename the functions to make the change in return type
> > explicit and ensure all
> > callers are updated.
> > 3. It doesn't provide any runtime or memory benefit.
> >
> > Other SELinux userspace maintainers are free to disagree with me and
> > merge it if they desire.
>
> Also, your patch breaks building the fuzzers due to missing #include
> <stdbool.h>;
> to reproduce, run ./scripts/oss-fuzz.sh to build the fuzzers.

One last reason to not apply this patch: it makes the code less
consistent, not more, since as you said, you don't convert all the
functions to reduce the scope of the change. I'd rather keep it
consistent.