Re: [PATCH] lib/glob: initialize back_str to silence uninitialized variable warning

From: Andrew Morton

Date: Thu Mar 12 2026 - 18:47:10 EST


On Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:52:49 +0000 Josh Law <hlcj1234567@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> back_str is only used when back_pat is non-NULL, and both are always
> set together, so it is safe in practice. Initialize back_str to NULL
> to make this safety invariant explicit and silence compiler/static
> analysis warnings.
>
> ...
>
> --- a/lib/glob.c
> +++ b/lib/glob.c
> @@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ bool __pure glob_match(char const *pat, char const *str)
> * (no exception for /), it can be easily proved that there's
> * never a need to backtrack multiple levels.
> */
> - char const *back_pat = NULL, *back_str;
> + char const *back_pat = NULL, *back_str = NULL;
>

I can certainly believe that some compiler versions will warn about
this, but please always quote the warning/error message when fixing
such things.