Re: [GIT PULL] fallthrough fixes for Clang for 5.14-rc2

From: Nathan Chancellor
Date: Fri Jul 16 2021 - 15:18:45 EST


On 7/16/2021 11:57 AM, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote
On 7/16/21 13:47, Nathan Chancellor wrote:
On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 06:04:15PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
On Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 1:03 PM Gustavo A. R. Silva
<gustavoars@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gustavoars/linux.git tags/Wimplicit-fallthrough-clang-5.14-rc2

Grr.

I merged this, but when I actually tested it on my clang build, it
turns out that the clang "-Wimplicit-fallthrough" flag is unbelievable
garbage.

I get

warning: fallthrough annotation in unreachable code [-Wimplicit-fallthrough]

and the stupid warning doesn't even say WHERE THE PROBLEM HAPPENS.

No file name, no line numbers. Just this pointless garbage warning.

Honestly, how does a compiler even do something that broken? Am I
supposed to use my sixth sense to guide me in finding the warning?

I like the concept of the fallthrough warning, but it looks like the
clang implementation of it is so unbelievably broken that it's getting
disabled again.

Yeah, I can

(a) build the kernel without any parallelism

(b) use ">&" to get both output and errors into the same file

(c) see that it says

CC kernel/sched/core.o
warning: fallthrough annotation in unreachable code [-Wimplicit-fallthrough]
1 warning generated.

and now I see at least which _file_ it is that causes that warning.

I can then use my incredible powers of deduction (it's almost like a
sixth sense, but helped by the fact that there's only one single
"fallthrough" statement in that file) to figure out that it's
triggered by this code:

case cpuset:
if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_CPUSETS)) {
cpuset_cpus_allowed_fallback(p);
state = possible;
break;
}
fallthrough;
case possible:

and it all makes it clear that the clang warning is just incredibly
broken garbage not only in that lack of filename and line number, but
just in general.

I commented this on the LLVM bug tracker but I will copy and paste it
here for posterity:

"It is actually the fact that

case 1:
if (something || !IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_SOMETHING))
return blah;
fallthrough;
case 2:

looks like

case 1:
return blah;
fallthrough;
case 2:

For example: https://godbolt.org/z/GdPeMbdo8

int foo(int a) {
switch (a) {
case 0:
if (0)
return 0;
__attribute__((__fallthrough__)); // no warning
case 1:
if (1)
return 1;
__attribute__((__fallthrough__)); // warning

I think that if the "1" in this case, depends on the initial
configuration, as it is the case with CONFIG_CPUSETS, then
Clang should not cause a warning either. That's how GCC seems
to be treating these scenarios.

Correct. It does not seem like GCC warns at all about the use of fallthrough attributes at all, for example, against the same clang test cases: https://godbolt.org/z/4MvW1TnYa

This could be a conscious decision by the clang developers to deviate from GCC, the only way we will know is from the bug report above. I can recall this happening once before where it impacted the kernel and the clang developers allowed me to add another flag that was default enabled but could be disabled separately from the warning to get GCC compatibility without sacrificing the additional warning coverage they felt was worth deviating from GCC for:

https://github.com/ClangBuiltLinux/linux/issues/887
https://reviews.llvm.org/D72231
https://reviews.llvm.org/D75758

Hence why I suggested -Wimplicit-fallthrough-unreachable.

case 2:
return 3;
default:
return 4;
}
}

I am not really sure how to resolve that within checkFallThroughIntoBlock() or
fillReachableBlocks() but given that this is something specific to the kernel,
we could introduce -Wimplicit-fallthrough-unreachable then disable it within
the kernel.

The file location not showing up was fixed by commit 1b4800c26259
("[clang][parser] Set source ranges for GNU-style attributes"). The
differential revision mentions this issue specifically."

Hopefully that would be an adequate solution, otherwise someone with more clang
internal will have to take a look.

Cheers,
Nathan