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

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Date:   Tue, 6 Feb 2018 09:22:54 +1100
From:   "Tobin C. Harding" <me@...in.cc>
To:     Adam Borowski <kilobyte@...band.pl>
Cc:     Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com>,
        Sergey Senozhatsky <sergey.senozhatsky@...il.com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
        "Roberts, William C" <william.c.roberts@...el.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@...lab.com>,
        Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] vsprintf: avoid misleading "(null)" for %px

On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 09:58:17PM +0100, Adam Borowski wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 06, 2018 at 07:32:32AM +1100, Kees Cook wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Tobin C. Harding <me@...in.cc> wrote:
> > > On Tue, Feb 06, 2018 at 05:57:17AM +1100, Kees Cook wrote:
> > >> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 8:44 PM, Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com> wrote:
> > >> > 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.
> > >
> > > Leaving aside what is converting to %px.  If we consider that using %px
> > > is meant to convey to us that we _really_ want the address, in hex hence
> > > the 'x', then it is not surprising that we will get "00000000"'s for a
> > > null pointer, right?  Yes it is different to before but since we are
> > > changing the specifier does this not imply that there may be some
> > > change?
> > 
> > I personally prefer 0000s, but if we're going to change this, we need
> > to be aware of the difference.
> 
> It's easy to paint this bikeshed any color you guys want to: there's an "if"
> already.  My preference is also 0000; NULL would be good, too -- I just
> don't want (null) as that has a special meaning in usual userspace
> implementations; (null) also fits well most other modes of %p as they show
> some object the argument points to.  Confusion = wasted debugging time.
> 
> This is consistent with what we had before, with %pK special-cased.
> 
> > > In what is now to be expected fashion for %p the discussion appears to
> > > have split into two different things - what to do with %px and what to
> > > do with %pK :)
> > 
> > I say leave %pK alone. :)
> 
> As in, printing some random (hashed) value?
> 
> 
> Let's recap:
> 
> Currently:
>               not-null              null
> %pponies      object's description  (null)
> %px           address               (null)
> %pK           hash                  hash
> 
> I'd propose:
>               not-null              null
> %pponies      object's description  (null)
> %px           address               00000000
> %pK           hash                  00000000
> 
> The initial patch in this thread changes printk("%px",0) from (null) to
> 00000000; what Tobin complained about is that printk("%pK",0) prints a
> random value.               

Epic fail on my behalf, my first comment was _wrong_ and brought %pK
into the discussion - bad Tobin, please crawl back under your rock.

The original patch is good IMO and I AFAICT in everyone else's.

	Tobin