linux-kernel - [PATCH] char: hpet: Use flexible-array member

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Message-ID: <20200120235326.GA29231@embeddedor.com>
Date:   Mon, 20 Jan 2020 17:53:26 -0600
From:   "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
To:     Clemens Ladisch <clemens@...isch.de>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
Subject: [PATCH] char: hpet: Use flexible-array member

Old code in the kernel uses 1-byte and 0-byte arrays to indicate the
presence of a "variable length array":

struct something {
    int length;
    u8 data[1];
};

struct something *instance;

instance = kmalloc(sizeof(*instance) + size, GFP_KERNEL);
instance->length = size;
memcpy(instance->data, source, size);

There is also 0-byte arrays. Both cases pose confusion for things like
sizeof(), CONFIG_FORTIFY_SOURCE, etc.[1] Instead, the preferred mechanism
to declare variable-length types such as the one above is a flexible array
member[2] which need to be the last member of a structure and empty-sized:

struct something {
        int stuff;
        u8 data[];
};

Also, 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
unadvertenly introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.

[1] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[2] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
---
 drivers/char/hpet.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/char/hpet.c b/drivers/char/hpet.c
index 9ac6671bb514..aed2c45f7968 100644
--- a/drivers/char/hpet.c
+++ b/drivers/char/hpet.c
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ struct hpets {
 	unsigned long hp_delta;
 	unsigned int hp_ntimer;
 	unsigned int hp_which;
-	struct hpet_dev hp_dev[1];
+	struct hpet_dev hp_dev[];
 };

 static struct hpets *hpets;
-- 
2.23.0