[PATCH v2 2/3] lib/string_helpers.c: don't lose precision in string_get_size()

From: Vitaly Kuznetsov
Date: Tue Oct 27 2015 - 10:07:01 EST


string_get_size() loses precision when there is a remainder for
blk_size / divisor[units] and size is big enough. E.g
string_get_size(8192, 4096, STRING_UNITS_10, ...) returns "32.7 MB"
while it is supposed to return "33.5 MB". For some artificial inputs
the result can be ridiculously wrong, e.g.
string_get_size(3000, 1900, STRING_UNITS_10, ...) returns "3.00 MB"
when "5.70 MB" is expected.

The issues comes from the fact than we through away
blk_size / divisor[units] remainder when size is > exp. This can be fixed
by saving it and doing some non-trivial calculations later to fix the error
but that would make this function even more cumbersome. Slightly re-factor
the function to not lose the precision for all inputs.

The overall complexity of this function comes from the fact that size can
be huge and we don't want to do size * blk_size as it can overflow. Do the
math in two steps:
1) Reduce size to something < blk_size * divisor[units]
2) Multiply the result (and the remainder) by blk_size and do final
calculations.

Reported-by: Rasmus Villemoes <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Vitaly Kuznetsov <vkuznets@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
Changes since v1:
- Check against blk_size == 0 [Rasmus Villemoes]
- Do not rename 'i' to 'order' [Andy Shevchenko]
---
lib/string_helpers.c | 37 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-------------
1 file changed, 24 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/string_helpers.c b/lib/string_helpers.c
index f6c27dc..eba8e82 100644
--- a/lib/string_helpers.c
+++ b/lib/string_helpers.c
@@ -44,7 +44,8 @@ void string_get_size(u64 size, u32 blk_size, const enum string_size_units units,
[STRING_UNITS_2] = 1024,
};
int i, j;
- u32 remainder = 0, sf_cap, exp;
+ u64 remainder = 0;
+ u32 sf_cap;
char tmp[8];
const char *unit;

@@ -53,28 +54,36 @@ void string_get_size(u64 size, u32 blk_size, const enum string_size_units units,
if (!size)
goto out;

- while (blk_size >= divisor[units]) {
- remainder = do_div(blk_size, divisor[units]);
- i++;
+ if (!blk_size) {
+ WARN_ON(1);
+ size = 0;
+ goto out;
}

- exp = divisor[units] / blk_size;
/*
- * size must be strictly greater than exp here to ensure that remainder
- * is greater than divisor[units] coming out of the if below.
+ * size can be huge and doing size * blk_size right away can overflow.
+ * As a first step reduce huge size to something less than
+ * blk_size * divisor[units].
*/
- if (size > exp) {
+ while (size > (u64)blk_size * divisor[units]) {
remainder = do_div(size, divisor[units]);
- remainder *= blk_size;
i++;
- } else {
- remainder *= size;
}

+ /* Now we're OK with doing size * blk_size, it won't overflow. */
size *= blk_size;
+ remainder *= blk_size;
+ /*
+ * We were doing partial multiplication by blk_size.
+ * remainder >= divisor[units] here means size should be increased.
+ */
size += remainder / divisor[units];
- remainder %= divisor[units];
+ remainder -= (remainder / divisor[units]) * divisor[units];

+ /*
+ * Normalize. size >= divisor[units] means we still have enough
+ * precision and dropping remainder is fine.
+ */
while (size >= divisor[units]) {
remainder = do_div(size, divisor[units]);
i++;
@@ -87,7 +96,8 @@ void string_get_size(u64 size, u32 blk_size, const enum string_size_units units,
if (j) {
remainder *= 1000;
remainder /= divisor[units];
- snprintf(tmp, sizeof(tmp), ".%03u", remainder);
+ /* remainder is < divisor[units] here, (u32) is legit */
+ snprintf(tmp, sizeof(tmp), ".%03u", (u32)remainder);
tmp[j+1] = '\0';
}

@@ -97,6 +107,7 @@ void string_get_size(u64 size, u32 blk_size, const enum string_size_units units,
else
unit = units_str[units][i];

+ /* size is < divisor[units] here, (u32) is legit */
snprintf(buf, len, "%u%s %s", (u32)size,
tmp, unit);
}
--
2.4.3

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