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

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Message-ID: <20200226222240.GA14474@embeddedor>
Date:   Wed, 26 Feb 2020 16:22:40 -0600
From:   "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
To:     Tomas Winkler <tomas.winkler@...el.com>,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Dimitri Sivanich <sivanich@....com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
Subject: [PATCH] misc: 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/misc/mei/hw.h            | 2 +-
 drivers/misc/mei/mei_dev.h       | 2 +-
 drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grulib.h    | 2 +-
 drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grutables.h | 2 +-
 4 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/misc/mei/hw.h b/drivers/misc/mei/hw.h
index 8231b6941adf..b1a8d5ec88b3 100644
--- a/drivers/misc/mei/hw.h
+++ b/drivers/misc/mei/hw.h
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ struct mei_msg_hdr {
 
 struct mei_bus_message {
 	u8 hbm_cmd;
-	u8 data[0];
+	u8 data[];
 } __packed;
 
 /**
diff --git a/drivers/misc/mei/mei_dev.h b/drivers/misc/mei/mei_dev.h
index 76f8ff5ff974..3a29db07211d 100644
--- a/drivers/misc/mei/mei_dev.h
+++ b/drivers/misc/mei/mei_dev.h
@@ -533,7 +533,7 @@ struct mei_device {
 #endif /* CONFIG_DEBUG_FS */
 
 	const struct mei_hw_ops *ops;
-	char hw[0] __aligned(sizeof(void *));
+	char hw[] __aligned(sizeof(void *));
 };
 
 static inline unsigned long mei_secs_to_jiffies(unsigned long sec)
diff --git a/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grulib.h b/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grulib.h
index e77d1b1f9d05..85c103923632 100644
--- a/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grulib.h
+++ b/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grulib.h
@@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ struct gru_dump_context_header {
 	pid_t		pid;
 	unsigned long	vaddr;
 	int		cch_locked;
-	unsigned long	data[0];
+	unsigned long	data[];
 };
 
 /*
diff --git a/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grutables.h b/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grutables.h
index a7e44b2eb413..5ce8f3081e96 100644
--- a/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grutables.h
+++ b/drivers/misc/sgi-gru/grutables.h
@@ -372,7 +372,7 @@ struct gru_thread_state {
 	int			ts_data_valid;	/* Indicates if ts_gdata has
 						   valid data */
 	struct gru_gseg_statistics ustats;	/* User statistics */
-	unsigned long		ts_gdata[0];	/* save area for GRU data (CB,
+	unsigned long		ts_gdata[];	/* save area for GRU data (CB,
 						   DS, CBE) */
 };
 
-- 
2.25.0