[$] Scope-based resource management for the kernel
The C language does not provide the sort of resource-management featuresfound in more recent languages. As a result, bugs involvingleaked memory or failure to release a lock are relatively common inprograms written in C - including the kernel. The kernel project has neverlimited itself to the language features found in the C standard, though;kernel developers will happilyuse extensions provided by compilers if they prove helpful. It looks likea relatively simple compiler-provided feature may lead to a significantchange in some common kernel coding patterns.