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net: ip_fib: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

PATCH Applied Gustavo A. R. Silva 2 participants 2 messages Mar 2, 2020

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PATCH 1/1 net: ip_fib: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

The current codebase makes use of the zero-length array language extension to the C90 standard, but the preferred mechanism to declare variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array member[1][2], introduced in C99:

struct foo {
        int stuff;
        struct boo array[];
};

By making use of the mechanism above, we will get a compiler warning in case the flexible array does not occur last in the structure, which will help us prevent some kind of undefined behavior bugs from being inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.

Also, notice that, dynamic memory allocations won't be affected by this change:

"Flexible array members have incomplete type, and so the sizeof operator may not be applied. As a quirk of the original implementation of zero-length arrays, sizeof evaluates to zero."[1]

This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

---
 include/net/ip_fib.h | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
include/net/ip_fib.h +2 -2
index 6a1ae49809de..dabe398bee4c 100644
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ struct fib_info {
 	bool			nh_updated;
 	struct nexthop		*nh;
 	struct rcu_head		rcu;
-	struct fib_nh		fib_nh[0];
+	struct fib_nh		fib_nh[];
 };
 
 
@@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ struct fib_table {
 	int			tb_num_default;
 	struct rcu_head		rcu;
 	unsigned long 		*tb_data;
-	unsigned long		__data[0];
+	unsigned long		__data[];
 };
 
 struct fib_dump_filter {
Signature · 1 line
2.25.0
maintainer Applied
#1 lore raw

From: "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2020 06:03:52 -0600

Quoted 22 lines

The current codebase makes use of the zero-length array language extension to the C90 standard, but the preferred mechanism to declare variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array member[1][2], introduced in C99:

struct foo {
        int stuff;
        struct boo array[];
};

By making use of the mechanism above, we will get a compiler warning in case the flexible array does not occur last in the structure, which will help us prevent some kind of undefined behavior bugs from being inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.

Also, notice that, dynamic memory allocations won't be affected by this change:

"Flexible array members have incomplete type, and so the sizeof operator may not be applied. As a quirk of the original implementation of zero-length arrays, sizeof evaluates to zero."[1]

Quoted 7 lines

This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Applied.