Re: [PATCH v3 1/7] sysfs: attribute_group: allow registration of const attribute

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Tue Aug 19 2025 - 07:24:35 EST


On Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 11:14:27AM +0200, Thomas Weißschuh wrote:
> To be able to constify instances of struct attribute it has to be
> possible to add them to struct attribute_group.
> The current type of the attrs member however is not compatible with that.
> Introduce a union that allows registration of both const and non-const
> attributes to enable a piecewise transition.
> As both union member types are compatible no logic needs to be adapted.
>
> Technically it is now possible register a const struct
> attribute and receive it as mutable pointer in the callbacks.
> This is a soundness issue.
> But this same soundness issue already exists today in
> sysfs_create_file().
> Also the struct definition and callback implementation are always
> closely linked and are meant to be moved to const in lockstep.
>
> Similar to commit 906c508afdca ("sysfs: attribute_group: allow registration of const bin_attribute")
>
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> include/linux/sysfs.h | 5 ++++-
> 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/include/linux/sysfs.h b/include/linux/sysfs.h
> index f418aae4f1134f8126783d9e8eb575ba4278e927..a47092e837d9eb014894d1f7e49f0fd0f9a2e350 100644
> --- a/include/linux/sysfs.h
> +++ b/include/linux/sysfs.h
> @@ -105,7 +105,10 @@ struct attribute_group {
> size_t (*bin_size)(struct kobject *,
> const struct bin_attribute *,
> int);
> - struct attribute **attrs;
> + union {
> + struct attribute **attrs;
> + const struct attribute *const *attrs_new;

I know you will drop the "_new" prefix after a while, but "new" is
relative, and not very descriptive. How about "_const"?

> + };
> union {
> const struct bin_attribute *const *bin_attrs;
> const struct bin_attribute *const *bin_attrs_new;

There is no bin_attrs_new anymore. Finally. sorry about that...

greg k-h