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

[Ludovic Desroches]

On Thu, May 07, 2020 at 02:00:38PM -0500, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
> EXTERNAL EMAIL: Do not click links or open attachments unless you know the content is safe
> 
> 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>
Acked-by: Ludovic Desroches<ludovic.desroches@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks
> ---
>  drivers/dma/at_hdmac_regs.h |    2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/dma/at_hdmac_regs.h b/drivers/dma/at_hdmac_regs.h
> index 397692e937b3..80fc2fe8c77e 100644
> --- a/drivers/dma/at_hdmac_regs.h
> +++ b/drivers/dma/at_hdmac_regs.h
> @@ -331,7 +331,7 @@ struct at_dma {
>         struct dma_pool         *dma_desc_pool;
>         struct dma_pool         *memset_pool;
>         /* AT THE END channels table */
> -       struct at_dma_chan      chan[0];
> +       struct at_dma_chan      chan[];
>  };
> 
>  #define        dma_readl(atdma, name) \
>