Re: [PATCH] vsprintf: avoid misleading "(null)" for %px

From: Tobin C. Harding
Date: Mon Feb 05 2018 - 05:03:24 EST


On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 10:44:38AM +0100, Petr Mladek wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I add people who actively commented on adding %px modifier,
> see the thread starting at
> https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1511921105-3647-5-git-send-email-me@xxxxxxxx
>
> Just for reference. It seems to be related to the commit 9f36e2c448007b54
> ("printk: use %pK for /proc/kallsyms and /proc/modules").
>
>
> On Sun 2018-02-04 18:45:21, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > Like %pK already does, print "00000000" instead.
> >
> > This confused people -- the convention is that "(null)" means you tried to
> > dereference a null pointer as opposed to printing the address.
>
> By other words, this avoids regressions when people convert
> %x to %px. Do I get it right, please?
>
> > Signed-off-by: Adam Borowski <kilobyte@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> > lib/vsprintf.c | 2 +-
> > 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/lib/vsprintf.c b/lib/vsprintf.c
> > index 77ee6ced11b1..d7a708f82559 100644
> > --- a/lib/vsprintf.c
> > +++ b/lib/vsprintf.c
> > @@ -1849,7 +1849,7 @@ char *pointer(const char *fmt, char *buf, char *end, void *ptr,
> > {
> > const int default_width = 2 * sizeof(void *);
> >
> > - if (!ptr && *fmt != 'K') {
> > + if (!ptr && *fmt != 'K' && *fmt != 'x') {

I don't know if it matters but with this it won't be immediately
apparent that a null pointer was printed (since zero could hash to
anything).

thanks,
Tobin.