From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Luc Van Oostenryck <luc.vanoostenryck@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Avoid reuse of string buffer when concatening adjacent
 string litterals
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2015 01:32:08 +0100
Message-ID: <20150204003208.GA8867@macbook.lan>
References: <87y4ojhq2f.fsf@rasmusvillemoes.dk>
 <20150131012339.GA3460@macpro.local>
 <87386mvcxh.fsf@rasmusvillemoes.dk>
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To: Rasmus Villemoes <linux@rasmusvillemoes.dk>
Cc: linux-sparse@vger.kernel.org, Christopher Li <sparse@chrisli.org>

On Tue, Feb 03, 2015 at 11:38:02PM +0100, Rasmus Villemoes wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 31 2015, Luc Van Oostenryck <luc.vanoostenryck@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > In get_string_constant(), the code tried to reuse the storage for the string
> > but only if the expansion of the string was not bigger than its unexpanded form.
> > But this fail when the string constant is a sequence of adjacent string litterals
> > (each being possibly shared, used elsewhere, isolated or in another order).
> > The minimal exemple would be something like this:
> >
> > #define P "\001"
> > const char a[] = P "a";
> > const char b[] = P "b";
> >
> > The expansion for 'a' will produce a string which is smaller than
> > the unexpanded "\001" (2 instead of 4).
> > By trying to reuse the storage, all further occurrence of "\001"
> > (probably only from the same 'origin', here the macro P) will then be replaced by "\001a".
> >
> > The fix is thus to not try to reuse the storage for the string if it consit of
> > several adjacent litterals.
> >
> 
> Thanks, but there's still something wrong. Using your show-data feature
> on this:
> 
> ===
> #define BACKSLASH "\\"
> #define LETTER_t "t"
> 
> static const char s1[] = BACKSLASH;
> /* static const char s2[] = BACKSLASH; */
> static const char s3[] = BACKSLASH LETTER_t;
> static const char s4[] = "a" BACKSLASH LETTER_t "b";
> ===
> 
> I get
> 
> symbol s1:
>         char static const [toplevel] s1[0]
>         bit_size = 16
>         val = "\\"
> symbol s3:
>         char static const [toplevel] s3[0]
>         bit_size = 24
>         val = "\0t"
> symbol s4:
>         char static const [toplevel] s4[0]
>         bit_size = 40
>         val = "a\0tb"
> 
> Now if I do the same with s2 not commented out, I get
> 
> 
> symbol s1:
>         char static const [toplevel] s1[0]
>         bit_size = 16
>         val = "\0"
> symbol s2:
>         char static const [toplevel] s2[0]
>         bit_size = 16
>         val = "\0"
> symbol s3:
>         char static const [toplevel] s3[0]
>         bit_size = 24
>         val = "\0t"
> symbol s4:
>         char static const [toplevel] s4[0]
>         bit_size = 40
>         val = "a\0tb"
> 
> So the expansion of BACKSLASH changes depending on how often it is
> expanded...
> 
> The LETTER_t thing above is because I thought I had somehow provoked a
> double expansion, making BACKSLASH LETTER_t (or some variant) expand to
> a single-character string containing just a tab. But I can't seem to
> reproduce that particular behaviour, so maybe I'm imagining
> stuff. Anyway, the above is certainly real.
> 
> Thanks,
> Rasmus
> --
Yes, I see.

Now thinking about it, it's obvious that the string buffer can't be reused at all
if there is any kind of expansion done on it, the adjacent strings concatenation
make just the thing worse but are not the cause of it.

I'll post an updated patch later.


Regards,
Luc