[PATCH][next] netfilter: ebtables: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

From: Gustavo A. R. Silva
Date: Mon Feb 17 2020 - 16:41:47 EST


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")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c b/net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c
index e1256e03a9a8..78db58c7aec2 100644
--- a/net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c
+++ b/net/bridge/netfilter/ebtables.c
@@ -1561,7 +1561,7 @@ struct compat_ebt_entry_mwt {
compat_uptr_t ptr;
} u;
compat_uint_t match_size;
- compat_uint_t data[0] __attribute__ ((aligned (__alignof__(struct compat_ebt_replace))));
+ compat_uint_t data[] __aligned(__alignof__(struct compat_ebt_replace));
};

/* account for possible padding between match_size and ->data */
--
2.25.0