Thread (2 messages) 2 messages, 2 authors, 2020-03-23

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

From: Kalle Valo <hidden>
Date: 2020-03-23 16:59:52
Also in: linux-wireless, lkml

"Gustavo A. R. Silva" [off-list ref] 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 <redacted>
Patch applied to wireless-drivers-next.git, thanks.

bc1d50a1a485 hostap: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

-- 
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/11402357/

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/developers/documentation/submittingpatches
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