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

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Message-ID: <20200507185413.GA14583@embeddedor>
Date:   Thu, 7 May 2020 13:54:13 -0500
From:   "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavoars@...nel.org>
To:     Tomas Winkler <tomas.winkler@...el.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH] treewide: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array

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]

sizeof(flexible-array-member) triggers a warning because flexible array
members have incomplete type[1]. There are some instances of code in
which the sizeof operator is being incorrectly/erroneously applied to
zero-length arrays and the result is zero. Such instances may be hiding
some bugs. So, this work (flexible-array member conversions) will also
help to get completely rid of those sorts of issues.

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 <gustavoars@...nel.org>
---
 samples/mei/mei-amt-version.c |    2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/samples/mei/mei-amt-version.c b/samples/mei/mei-amt-version.c
index 32234481ad7d..ad3e56042f96 100644
--- a/samples/mei/mei-amt-version.c
+++ b/samples/mei/mei-amt-version.c
@@ -267,7 +267,7 @@ struct amt_host_if_msg_header {
 struct amt_host_if_resp_header {
 	struct amt_host_if_msg_header header;
 	uint32_t status;
-	unsigned char data[0];
+	unsigned char data[];
 } __attribute__((packed));

 const uuid_le MEI_IAMTHIF = UUID_LE(0x12f80028, 0xb4b7, 0x4b2d,  \