Re: [PATCH 0/3] Remove accidental VLA usage

From: Andrew Morton
Date: Thu Mar 08 2018 - 15:49:22 EST


On Thu, 8 Mar 2018 09:02:36 -0600 Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 07, 2018 at 07:30:44PM -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
> > This series adds SIMPLE_MAX() to be used in places where a stack array
> > is actually fixed, but the compiler still warns about VLA usage due to
> > confusion caused by the safety checks in the max() macro.
> >
> > I'm sending these via -mm since that's where I've introduced SIMPLE_MAX(),
> > and they should all have no operational differences.
>
> What if we instead simplify the max() macro's type checking so that GCC
> can more easily fold the array size constants? The below patch seems to
> work:
>
> -/*
> - * min()/max()/clamp() macros that also do
> - * strict type-checking.. See the
> - * "unnecessary" pointer comparison.
> - */
> -#define __min(t1, t2, min1, min2, x, y) ({ \
> - t1 min1 = (x); \
> - t2 min2 = (y); \
> - (void) (&min1 == &min2); \
> - min1 < min2 ? min1 : min2; })
> +extern long __error_incompatible_types_in_min_macro;
> +extern long __error_incompatible_types_in_max_macro;
> +
> +#define __min(t1, t2, x, y) \
> + __builtin_choose_expr(__builtin_types_compatible_p(t1, t2), \
> + (t1)(x) < (t2)(y) ? (t1)(x) : (t2)(y), \
> + (t1)__error_incompatible_types_in_min_macro)

This will move the error detection from compile-time to link-time.
That's tolerable I guess, but a bit sad and should be flagged in the
changelog at least.