Author: Andreea-Cristina Bernat <bernat.ada@gmail.com> The uses of « rcu_assign_pointer() » are NULLing out the pointers. According to RCU_INIT_POINTER()’s block comment: « 1. This use of RCU_INIT_POINTER() is NULLing out the pointer » it is better to use it instead of rcu_assign_pointer() because it has a smaller overhead. The following Coccinelle semantic patch was used: @@ @@ – rcu_assign_pointer + …