[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] doc/developer: origin of tables should be documented.

Nicolas George george at nsup.org
Fri Jul 31 11:48:51 EEST 2020


Tables that were not just written by the code author are
not actually source code, otherwise,
"recode data..x1 < proprietary.o > source.c"
would be enough to launder a proprietary blob into
the source code.

Documenting the origin of the tables or the methods
for their generation is necessary to let other developers
take over if the original author is no longer available.

Signed-off-by: Nicolas George <george at nsup.org>
---
 doc/developer.texi | 8 ++++++++
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/developer.texi b/doc/developer.texi
index b33cab0fc7..5c698fe9c5 100644
--- a/doc/developer.texi
+++ b/doc/developer.texi
@@ -216,6 +216,14 @@ please use av_log() instead.
 @item
 Casts should be used only when necessary. Unneeded parentheses
 should also be avoided if they don't make the code easier to understand.
+
+ at item
+If the code contains tables of numbers or other data, their origin should be
+documented in a comment, so that other developers can rebuild them if
+necessary. If they were taken from a reference, include the URL of that
+reference. If they were computed by a tool, include the code of the tool.
+If they were reverse-engineerd, include an honest attempt at explaining the
+methods used.
 @end itemize
 
 @section Editor configuration
-- 
2.27.0



More information about the ffmpeg-devel mailing list