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

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Message-ID: <20200227184808.GA1925@embeddedor>
Date:   Thu, 27 Feb 2020 12:48:08 -0600
From:   "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavo@...eddedor.com>
To:     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: mspec: 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/char/mspec.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/char/mspec.c b/drivers/char/mspec.c
index a9d9f074fbd6..7d583222e8fa 100644
--- a/drivers/char/mspec.c
+++ b/drivers/char/mspec.c
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ struct vma_data {
 	enum mspec_page_type type; /* Type of pages allocated. */
 	unsigned long vm_start;	/* Original (unsplit) base. */
 	unsigned long vm_end;	/* Original (unsplit) end. */
-	unsigned long maddr[0];	/* Array of MSPEC addresses. */
+	unsigned long maddr[];	/* Array of MSPEC addresses. */
 };
 
 /*
-- 
2.25.0