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] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[3] commit 7649773293 ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")
Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavoars@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Kalle Valo <kvalo@codeaurora.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200507185529.GA14639@embeddedor
Based on 1 normalized pattern(s):
this program is free software you can redistribute it and or modify
it under the terms of version 2 of the gnu general public license as
published by the free software foundation this program is
distributed in the hope that it will be useful but without any
warranty without even the implied warranty of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose see the gnu general public license
for more details you should have received a copy of the gnu general
public license along with this program if not write to the free
software foundation inc 51 franklin street fifth floor boston ma
02110 usa the full gnu general public license is included in this
distribution in the file called license
extracted by the scancode license scanner the SPDX license identifier
GPL-2.0-only
has been chosen to replace the boilerplate/reference in 9 file(s).
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Reviewed-by: Richard Fontana <rfontana@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Alexios Zavras <alexios.zavras@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Allison Randal <allison@lohutok.net>
Cc: linux-spdx@vger.kernel.org
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20190529141334.333998390@linutronix.de
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Gustavo A. R. Silva