Re: [PATCH -next] fs/ntfs3: Fix potential NULL/IS_ERR bug in ntfs_lookup()

[Al Viro]

On Mon, Jan 16, 2023 at 08:18:07PM +0000, Al Viro wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2023 at 02:05:56PM +0400, Konstantin Komarov wrote:
> 
> > Hello.
> > 
> > We have added a patch with this check just before the New Year. (here https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/ee705b24-865b-26ff-157d-4cb2a303a962@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/)
> 
> See upthread for the reasons why that's wrong.  Incidentally,
> mixing logical change with a pile of whitespace changes is
> bad idea - it's very easy for reviewers to miss...
> 
> Other observation from the cursory look through your namei.c:
> ntfs_create_inode() has no reason to return inode; the reference
> it creates goes into dentry.  Make it return int, the callers will
> be happier.  While we are at it, use d_instantiate_new() instead
> of d_instantiate() + unlock_new_inode() there.
> 
> Incidentally, control flow in there is harder to follow that it
> needs to be:
> 	* everything that reaches out{3,4,5,6,7} is guaranteed
> to have err != 0;
> 	* fallthrough into out2 is guaranteed to have err != 0;
> direct branch to it - err == 0.
> 	* direct branch to out1 is guaranteed to have err != 0.
> 
> I would suggest something along the lines of the following (completely
> untested) delta; the callers are clearly better off that way and
> failure paths are separated from the success one - they didn't share
> anywhere near enough to have it worth bothering.

While we are at it - what's the point passing the symlink body length
to ntfs_create_inode()?  We could calculate it there just as well -
it's used only for symlinks (unsurprisingly) and you've got uncomfortably
many arguments as it is...