Re: [PATCH][next] acpi: nfit.h: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

From: Dan Williams
Date: Mon Mar 30 2020 - 15:55:13 EST


On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 3:06 AM Rafael J. Wysocki <rafael@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 9:15 PM Gustavo A. R. Silva
> <gustavo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > 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>
>
> Dan,
>
> I'm assuming that you will take care of this one or please let me know
> otherwise.

Yes, this one and the other 2 related libnvdimm fixups are in my queue.