Re: [PATCH] ocfs2: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

From: Gustavo A. R. Silva
Date: Mon Mar 02 2020 - 18:54:14 EST


Hi all,

Friendly ping: Who can take this?

Thanks
--
Gustavo

On 2/13/20 10:02, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
> 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>
> ---
> fs/ocfs2/journal.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/ocfs2/journal.c b/fs/ocfs2/journal.c
> index 68ba354cf361..b425f0b01dce 100644
> --- a/fs/ocfs2/journal.c
> +++ b/fs/ocfs2/journal.c
> @@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ enum ocfs2_replay_state {
> struct ocfs2_replay_map {
> unsigned int rm_slots;
> enum ocfs2_replay_state rm_state;
> - unsigned char rm_replay_slots[0];
> + unsigned char rm_replay_slots[];
> };
>
> static void ocfs2_replay_map_set_state(struct ocfs2_super *osb, int state)
>