Re: [PATCH] kstrto*: converting strings to integers done(hopefully) right

From: Andrew Morton
Date: Tue Mar 01 2011 - 18:25:20 EST


On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 14:47:08 +0200
Alexey Dobriyan <adobriyan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 1. simple_strto*() do not contain overflow checks and crufty,
> libc way to indicate failure.
> 2. strict_strto*() also do not have overflow checks but the name and
> comments pretend they do.
> 3. Both families have only "long long" and "long" variants,
> but users want strtou8()
> 4. Both "simple" and "strict" prefixes are wrong:
> Simple doesn't exactly say what's so simple, strict should not exist
> because conversion should be strict by default.
>
> The solution is to use "k" prefix and add convertors for more types.
> Enter
> kstrtoull()
> kstrtoll()
> kstrtoul()
> kstrtol()
> kstrtouint()
> kstrtoint()
>
> kstrtou64()
> kstrtos64()
> kstrtou32()
> kstrtos32()
> kstrtou16()
> kstrtos16()
> kstrtou8()
> kstrtos8()
>
> Include runtime testsuite (somewhat incomplete) as well.
>
> strict_strto*() become deprecated, stubbed to kstrto*() and
> eventually will be removed altogether.

Note that they're deprecated but not marked __deprecated. That's OK.

> Use kstrto*() in code today!

If you can stomach perl, please prepare a checkpatch patch which alerts
people to the new regime.

> Note: on some archs _kstrtoul() and _kstrtol() are left in tree, even if
> they'll be unused at runtime. This is temporarily solution,
> because I don't want to hardcode list of archs where these
> functions aren't needed. Current solution with sizeof() and
> __alignof__ at least always works.
> ---
>
> Let's merge this into mainline, so I can send individual patches
> to subsystem maintainers. Whole tree is already converted locally.

Talk to us about the tighter checking. There's a risk here that
current userspace which "works" will cease to work if we add additional
input checking. Even if that userspace was broken and
just-happened-to-work, adding additional checks might cause disruption?


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