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

From: Gustavo A. R. Silva
Date: Fri Feb 28 2020 - 08:16:25 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
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]

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/xdp/xsk_queue.h | 4 ++--
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/xdp/xsk_queue.h b/net/xdp/xsk_queue.h
index 89a01ac4e079..b50bb5c76da5 100644
--- a/net/xdp/xsk_queue.h
+++ b/net/xdp/xsk_queue.h
@@ -19,13 +19,13 @@ struct xdp_ring {
/* Used for the RX and TX queues for packets */
struct xdp_rxtx_ring {
struct xdp_ring ptrs;
- struct xdp_desc desc[0] ____cacheline_aligned_in_smp;
+ struct xdp_desc desc[] ____cacheline_aligned_in_smp;
};

/* Used for the fill and completion queues for buffers */
struct xdp_umem_ring {
struct xdp_ring ptrs;
- u64 desc[0] ____cacheline_aligned_in_smp;
+ u64 desc[] ____cacheline_aligned_in_smp;
};

struct xsk_queue {
--
2.25.0