[PATCH] doc: drop recommendation against bool in structures

[Marat Khalili]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Maxime Leroy <maxime.leroys at gmail.com> On Behalf Of Maxime Leroy
> Sent: Monday 20 July 2026 12:46
> To: dev at dpdk.org
> Cc: Stephen Hemminger <stephen at networkplumber.org>; Thomas Monjalon <thomas at monjalon.net>; David
> Marchand <david.marchand at redhat.com>; Maxime Leroy <maxime at leroys.fr>
> Subject: [PATCH] doc: drop recommendation against bool in structures
> 
> The coding style advised against bool in structures, citing space and
> type-size concerns inherited from the Linux kernel. That does not match
> DPDK practice: bool is already used in over 1400 structure fields across
> the tree, including core APIs such as rte_flow. Drop the note so the
> style guide reflects actual usage.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Maxime Leroy <maxime at leroys.fr>
> ---
>  doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst | 9 ---------
>  1 file changed, 9 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst b/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst
> index 976a1e1de3..11de3bb39a 100644
> --- a/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst
> +++ b/doc/guides/contributing/coding_style.rst
> @@ -313,15 +313,6 @@ Structure Declarations
>  * Use of the structures should be by separate variable declarations and those declarations must be
> extern if they are declared in a header file.
>  * Externally visible structure definitions should have the structure name prefixed by ``rte_`` to
> avoid namespace collisions.
> 
> -.. note::
> -
> -    Avoid using ``bool`` in structures because it wastes space and
> -    the type size is unclear. A preferred use of
> -    ``bool`` is mainly as a return type from functions that return true/false,
> -    and maybe local variable functions.
> -
> -    Ref: `LKML <https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/11/21/384>`_
> -

Acked-by: Marat Khalili <marat.khalili at huawei.com>

>  Queues
>  ~~~~~~
> 
> --
> 2.43.0