[PATCH RFC 1/5] workqueue: fix parse_affn_scope() prefix matching bug

From: Breno Leitao

Date: Thu Mar 12 2026 - 12:19:36 EST


parse_affn_scope() uses strncasecmp() with the length of the candidate
name, which means it only checks if the input *starts with* a known
scope name.

Given that the upcoming diff will create "cache_shard" affinity scope,
writing "cache_shard" to a workqueue's affinity_scope sysfs attribute
always matches "cache" first, making it impossible to select
"cache_shard" via sysfs, so, this fix enable it to distinguish "cache"
and "cache_shard"

Fix by replacing the hand-rolled prefix matching loop with
sysfs_match_string(), which uses sysfs_streq() for exact matching
(modulo trailing newlines). Also add the missing const qualifier to
the wq_affn_names[] array declaration.

Note that sysfs_streq() is case-sensitive, unlike the previous
strncasecmp() approach. This is intentional and consistent with
how other sysfs attributes handle string matching in the kernel.

Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
kernel/workqueue.c | 10 ++--------
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/workqueue.c b/kernel/workqueue.c
index aeaec79bc09c4..028afc3d14e59 100644
--- a/kernel/workqueue.c
+++ b/kernel/workqueue.c
@@ -404,7 +404,7 @@ struct work_offq_data {
u32 flags;
};

-static const char *wq_affn_names[WQ_AFFN_NR_TYPES] = {
+static const char * const wq_affn_names[WQ_AFFN_NR_TYPES] = {
[WQ_AFFN_DFL] = "default",
[WQ_AFFN_CPU] = "cpu",
[WQ_AFFN_SMT] = "smt",
@@ -7063,13 +7063,7 @@ int workqueue_unbound_housekeeping_update(const struct cpumask *hk)

static int parse_affn_scope(const char *val)
{
- int i;
-
- for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(wq_affn_names); i++) {
- if (!strncasecmp(val, wq_affn_names[i], strlen(wq_affn_names[i])))
- return i;
- }
- return -EINVAL;
+ return sysfs_match_string(wq_affn_names, val);
}

static int wq_affn_dfl_set(const char *val, const struct kernel_param *kp)

--
2.52.0