Re: [PATCH] kprobes: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array

From: Masami Hiramatsu
Date: Fri May 08 2020 - 03:57:25 EST


On Thu, 7 May 2020 13:57:33 -0500
"Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavoars@xxxxxxxxxx> 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]
>
> sizeof(flexible-array-member) triggers a warning because flexible array
> members have incomplete type[1]. There are some instances of code in
> which the sizeof operator is being incorrectly/erroneously applied to
> zero-length arrays and the result is zero. Such instances may be hiding
> some bugs. So, this work (flexible-array member conversions) will also
> help to get completely rid of those sorts of issues.
>
> 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 <gustavoars@xxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks for the complete explanation :-D
This looks good to me.

Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx>

> ---
> include/linux/kprobes.h | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/include/linux/kprobes.h b/include/linux/kprobes.h
> index 04bdaf01112c..4477205e3e92 100644
> --- a/include/linux/kprobes.h
> +++ b/include/linux/kprobes.h
> @@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ struct kretprobe_instance {
> kprobe_opcode_t *ret_addr;
> struct task_struct *task;
> void *fp;
> - char data[0];
> + char data[];
> };
>
> struct kretprobe_blackpoint {
>


--
Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@xxxxxxxxxx>