[PATCH] xen: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

[PATCH] xen: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

[Gustavo A. R. Silva]

The current codebase makes use of the zero-length array language
extension to the C90 standard, but the preferred mechanism to declare
variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array member[1][2],
introduced in C99:

struct foo {
        int stuff;
        struct boo array[];
};

By making use of the mechanism above, we will get a compiler warning
in case the flexible array does not occur last in the structure, which
will help us prevent some kind of undefined behavior bugs from being
inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.

Also, notice that, dynamic memory allocations won't be affected by
this change:

"Flexible array members have incomplete type, and so the sizeof operator
may not be applied. As a quirk of the original implementation of
zero-length arrays, sizeof evaluates to zero."[1]

This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@embeddedor.com>
---
 drivers/xen/xen-pciback/pciback.h | 2 +-
 include/xen/interface/io/tpmif.h  | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/xen/xen-pciback/pciback.h b/drivers/xen/xen-pciback/pciback.h
index ce1077e32466..7c95516a860f 100644
--- a/drivers/xen/xen-pciback/pciback.h
+++ b/drivers/xen/xen-pciback/pciback.h
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ struct xen_pcibk_dev_data {
 	unsigned int ack_intr:1; /* .. and ACK-ing */
 	unsigned long handled;
 	unsigned int irq; /* Saved in case device transitions to MSI/MSI-X */
-	char irq_name[0]; /* xen-pcibk[000:04:00.0] */
+	char irq_name[]; /* xen-pcibk[000:04:00.0] */
 };
 
 /* Used by XenBus and xen_pcibk_ops.c */
diff --git a/include/xen/interface/io/tpmif.h b/include/xen/interface/io/tpmif.h
index 28e7dcd75e82..f8aa8bac5196 100644
--- a/include/xen/interface/io/tpmif.h
+++ b/include/xen/interface/io/tpmif.h
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ struct vtpm_shared_page {
 	uint8_t pad;
 
 	uint8_t nr_extra_pages;  /* extra pages for long packets; may be zero */
-	uint32_t extra_pages[0]; /* grant IDs; length in nr_extra_pages */
+	uint32_t extra_pages[]; /* grant IDs; length in nr_extra_pages */
 };
 
 #endif
-- 
2.25.0

Re: [PATCH] xen: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

[Jürgen Groß]

On 26.02.20 22:26, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
> The current codebase makes use of the zero-length array language
> extension to the C90 standard, but the preferred mechanism to declare
> variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array member[1][2],
> introduced in C99:
> 
> struct foo {
>          int stuff;
>          struct boo array[];
> };
> 
> By making use of the mechanism above, we will get a compiler warning
> in case the flexible array does not occur last in the structure, which
> will help us prevent some kind of undefined behavior bugs from being
> inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.
> 
> Also, notice that, dynamic memory allocations won't be affected by
> this change:
> 
> "Flexible array members have incomplete type, and so the sizeof operator
> may not be applied. As a quirk of the original implementation of
> zero-length arrays, sizeof evaluates to zero."[1]
> 
> This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.
> 
> [1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
> [2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
> [3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")
> 
> Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@embeddedor.com>

Reviewed-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>


Juergen

Re: [PATCH] xen: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

[Boris Ostrovsky]

On 2/27/20 4:31 AM, Jürgen Groß wrote:
> On 26.02.20 22:26, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
>> The current codebase makes use of the zero-length array language
>> extension to the C90 standard, but the preferred mechanism to declare
>> variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array
>> member[1][2],
>> introduced in C99:
>>
>> struct foo {
>>          int stuff;
>>          struct boo array[];
>> };
>>
>> By making use of the mechanism above, we will get a compiler warning
>> in case the flexible array does not occur last in the structure, which
>> will help us prevent some kind of undefined behavior bugs from being
>> inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.
>>
>> Also, notice that, dynamic memory allocations won't be affected by
>> this change:
>>
>> "Flexible array members have incomplete type, and so the sizeof operator
>> may not be applied. As a quirk of the original implementation of
>> zero-length arrays, sizeof evaluates to zero."[1]
>>
>> This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.
>>
>> [1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
>> [2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
>> [3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@embeddedor.com>
>
> Reviewed-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>


Applied to for-linus-5.6.

-boris