Re: [PATCH v1 1/1] bpf: Mark BPF printing functions with __printf() attribute
From: Alexei Starovoitov
Date: Wed Dec 10 2025 - 02:09:49 EST
On Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 10:37 PM Andy Shevchenko
<andriy.shevchenko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Dec 09, 2025 at 06:12:46PM +0900, Alexei Starovoitov wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 1:21 AM Andy Shevchenko
> > <andriy.shevchenko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > The printing functions in BPF code are using printf() type of format,
> > > and compiler is not happy about them as is:
> > >
> > > kernel/bpf/helpers.c:1069:9: error: function ‘____bpf_snprintf’ might be a candidate for ‘gnu_printf’ format attribute [-Werror=suggest-attribute=format]
> > > 1069 | err = bstr_printf(str, str_size, fmt, data.bin_args);
> > > | ^~~
> > >
> > > kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c:377:9: error: function ‘____bpf_trace_printk’ might be a candidate for ‘gnu_printf’ format attribute [-Werror=suggest-attribute=format]
> > > 377 | ret = bstr_printf(data.buf, MAX_BPRINTF_BUF, fmt, data.bin_args);
> > > | ^~~
> > >
> > > kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c:433:9: error: function ‘____bpf_trace_vprintk’ might be a candidate for ‘gnu_printf’ format attribute [-Werror=suggest-attribute=format]
> > > 433 | ret = bstr_printf(data.buf, MAX_BPRINTF_BUF, fmt, data.bin_args);
> > > | ^~~
> > >
> > > kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c:475:9: error: function ‘____bpf_seq_printf’ might be a candidate for ‘gnu_printf’ format attribute [-Werror=suggest-attribute=format]
> > > 475 | seq_bprintf(m, fmt, data.bin_args);
> > > | ^~~~~~~~~~~
> > >
> > > Fix the compilation errors by adding __printf() attribute. For that
> > > we need to pass it down to the BPF_CALL_x() and wrap into PRINTF_BPF_CALL_*()
> > > to make code neater.
>
> > This is pointless churn to shut up a warning.
>
> In some cases, like mine, it's an error.
>
> > Teach syzbot to stop this spam instead.
>
> It prevents to perform `make W=1` builds with the default CONFIG_WERROR,
> which is 'y'.
>
> > At the end this patch doesn't make any visible difference,
> > since user declarations of these helpers are auto generated
> > from uapi/bpf.h file and __printf attribute is not there.
>
> I see, thanks for the review.
> Any recommendations on how to fix this properly?
Add -Wno-suggest-attribute=format
to corresponding files in Makefile.
I think it's cleaner than __diag_ignore() in the .c