Re: [PATCH] Add pyramid style rule to CONTRIBUTING.md

[Yumei Huang <yuhuang@redhat.com>]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2025 at 10:28 AM Stefano Brivio <sbrivio@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:40:10 +1100
> David Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 12:30:54PM +0800, Yumei Huang wrote:
> > > Also fix the copyright line.
> > >
> > > Suggested-by: Stefano Brivio <sbrivio@redhat.com>
> > > Signed-off-by: Yumei Huang <yuhuang@redhat.com>
> >
> > Stefano, do we actually encourage that style for any "list of similar
> > items"?  Or just for local variable declarations?
>
> Just for local variable declarations, thanks for noticing.
>
> I was rather focusing on the fact (https://lwn.net/Articles/758552/)
> that it's actually called "Reverse Christmas tree", not pyramid style.
>
> I can't find a convenient reference right now, maybe it's hidden
> somewhere in https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/?q=reverse+christmas+tree,
> ...or maybe it's actually "documented" in checkpatch.pl?

I found it in Documentation/process/maintainer-kvm-x86.rst as below:

"
Using reverse fir tree, a.k.a. reverse Christmas tree or reverse XMAS tree, for
variable declarations isn't strictly required, though it is still preferred.
"

I will update the name and make it only for local variable declarations.

Do I need to update the reference link as well? The name would be
different from the current pyramids link
(https://hisham.hm/2018/06/16/when-listing-repeated-things-make-pyramids/).
Not sure if it would be a little bit confusing if not.

>
> Or prehaps just trust us/me on that, sorry, I know it's not ideal :(
> ...but I can absolutely guarantee it's called Reverse Christmas tree.
>
> --
> Stefano
>


-- 
Thanks,

Yumei Huang