linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH][next] netronome: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

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Date:   Mon, 24 Feb 2020 17:25:32 +0000
From:   Song Liu <songliubraving@...com>
To:     "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
CC:     Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Alexei Starovoitov <ast@...nel.org>,
        Daniel Borkmann <daniel@...earbox.net>,
        Martin Lau <kafai@...com>, Yonghong Song <yhs@...com>,
        Andrii Nakryiko <andriin@...com>,
        "netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        "bpf@...r.kernel.org" <bpf@...r.kernel.org>,
        "oss-drivers@...ronome.com" <oss-drivers@...ronome.com>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re:   [PATCH][next] netronome: Replace zero-length array with
 flexible-array member


> On Feb 24, 2020, at 8:34 AM, Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@...eddedor.com> 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@...eddedor.com>

Acked-by: Song Liu <songliubraving@...com>