Re: [PATCH] selftests/mm: Fix compiler -Wmaybe-uninitialized warning

From: David Hildenbrand
Date: Wed Apr 09 2025 - 06:31:57 EST


On 09.04.25 12:25, Anshuman Khandual wrote:


On 4/9/25 15:51, David Hildenbrand wrote:
On 09.04.25 12:09, Anshuman Khandual wrote:


On 4/9/25 15:27, David Hildenbrand wrote:
On 09.04.25 11:50, Anshuman Khandual wrote:
Following build warning comes up for cow test as 'transferred' variable has
not been initialized. Fix the warning via zero init for the variable.

    CC       cow
cow.c: In function ‘do_test_vmsplice_in_parent’:
cow.c:365:61: warning: ‘transferred’ may be used uninitialized [-Wmaybe-uninitialized]
    365 |                 cur = read(fds[0], new + total, transferred - total);
        |                                                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~~~~
cow.c:296:29: note: ‘transferred’ was declared here
    296 |         ssize_t cur, total, transferred;
        |                             ^~~~~~~~~~~
    CC       compaction_test
    CC       gup_longterm

Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Shuah Khan <shuah@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: linux-mm@xxxxxxxxx
Cc: linux-kselftest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Anshuman Khandual <anshuman.khandual@xxxxxxx>
---
   tools/testing/selftests/mm/cow.c | 2 +-
   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/cow.c b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/cow.c
index f0cb14ea8608..b6cfe0a4b7df 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/cow.c
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/cow.c
@@ -293,7 +293,7 @@ static void do_test_vmsplice_in_parent(char *mem, size_t size,
           .iov_base = mem,
           .iov_len = size,
       };
-    ssize_t cur, total, transferred;
+    ssize_t cur, total, transferred = 0;
       struct comm_pipes comm_pipes;
       char *old, *new;
       int ret, fds[2];


if (before_fork) {
     transferred = vmsplice(fds[1], &iov, 1, 0);
...

if (!before_fork) {
     transferred = vmsplice(fds[1], &iov, 1, 0);
...

for (total = 0; total < transferred; total += cur) {
...


And I don't see any jump label that could jump to code that would ve using transferred.

What am I missing?

Probably because both those conditional statements are not mutually
exclusive above with an if-else construct. Hence compiler flags it
rather as a false positive ? Initializing with 0 just works around
that false positive.

This is something the compiler should clearly be able to verify. before_fork is never changed in that function.

We should not work around wrong compilers.

Which compiler are you using such that you run into this issue?

gcc (Ubuntu 13.3.0-6ubuntu2~24.04) 13.3.0


gcc (GCC) 14.2.1 20250110 (Red Hat 14.2.1-7)

Seems to be fine, just like all other compilers people used with this over the years.

Maybe something about that compiler is shaky that was fixed in the meantime?

--
Cheers,

David / dhildenb