Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
PNPBIOS: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
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]

sizeof(flexible-array-member) triggers a warning because flexible array
members have incomplete type[1]. There are some instances of code in
which the sizeof operator is being incorrectly/erroneously applied to
zero-length arrays and the result is zero. Such instances may be hiding
some bugs. So, this work (flexible-array member conversions) will also
help to get completely rid of those sorts of issues.

This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[2] KSPP#21
[3] commit 7649773 ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <[email protected]>
  • Loading branch information
GustavoARSilva authored and rafaeljw committed May 15, 2020
1 parent 2ef96a5 commit 9361797
Showing 1 changed file with 1 addition and 1 deletion.
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion drivers/pnp/pnpbios/pnpbios.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -107,7 +107,7 @@ struct pnp_bios_node {
__u32 eisa_id;
__u8 type_code[3];
__u16 flags;
__u8 data[0];
__u8 data[];
};
#pragma pack()

Expand Down

0 comments on commit 9361797

Please sign in to comment.