linux-kernel - [PATCH] stm class: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

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Message-ID: <20200212235443.GA18334@embeddedor.com>
Date:   Wed, 12 Feb 2020 17:54:43 -0600
From:   "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
To:     Alexander Shishkin <alexander.shishkin@...ux.intel.com>,
        Maxime Coquelin <mcoquelin.stm32@...il.com>,
        Alexandre Torgue <alexandre.torgue@...com>
Cc:     linux-stm32@...md-mailman.stormreply.com,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
Subject: [PATCH] stm class: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array
 member

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@...eddedor.com>
---
 drivers/hwtracing/stm/policy.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/hwtracing/stm/policy.c b/drivers/hwtracing/stm/policy.c
index 4f932a419752..603b4a9969d3 100644
--- a/drivers/hwtracing/stm/policy.c
+++ b/drivers/hwtracing/stm/policy.c
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ struct stp_policy_node {
 	unsigned int		first_channel;
 	unsigned int		last_channel;
 	/* this is the one that's exposed to the attributes */
-	unsigned char		priv[0];
+	unsigned char		priv[];
 };
 
 void *stp_policy_node_priv(struct stp_policy_node *pn)
-- 
2.23.0