[PATCH net-next] net: devlink: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

From: Gustavo A. R. Silva
Date: Wed Feb 12 2020 - 14:36:37 EST


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
inadvertenly 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]

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 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
net/core/devlink.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/net/core/devlink.c b/net/core/devlink.c
index 549ee56b7a21..a8c1f46319da 100644
--- a/net/core/devlink.c
+++ b/net/core/devlink.c
@@ -4232,7 +4232,7 @@ struct devlink_fmsg_item {
int attrtype;
u8 nla_type;
u16 len;
- int value[0];
+ int value[];
};

struct devlink_fmsg {
--
2.25.0