linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] Staging : android: Struct file

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Date:   Mon, 7 Feb 2022 16:01:01 +0000
From:   Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>
To:     Leonardo Araujo <leonardo.aa88@...il.com>
Cc:     gregkh@...uxfoundation.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-staging@...ts.linux.dev
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Staging : android: Struct file_operations should be const

On Mon, Feb 07, 2022 at 12:17:11AM -0300, Leonardo Araujo wrote:
> From: "Leonardo Araujo" <leonardo.aa88@...il.com>
> 
> WARNING: struct file_operations should normally be const
> 
> Signed-off-by: Leonardo Araujo <leonardo.aa88@...il.com>
> ---
>  drivers/staging/android/ashmem.c | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/staging/android/ashmem.c b/drivers/staging/android/ashmem.c
> index ddbde3f8430e..4c6b420fbf4d 100644
> --- a/drivers/staging/android/ashmem.c
> +++ b/drivers/staging/android/ashmem.c
> @@ -377,7 +377,7 @@ ashmem_vmfile_get_unmapped_area(struct file *file, unsigned long addr,
>  
>  static int ashmem_mmap(struct file *file, struct vm_area_struct *vma)
>  {
> -	static struct file_operations vmfile_fops;
> +	static const struct file_operations vmfile_fops;
>  	struct ashmem_area *asma = file->private_data;
>  	int ret = 0;

Wait a minute.  Why the hell would it possibly want a private instance
of all-NULLs file_operations?  Odd...
<checks>
                if (!vmfile_fops.mmap) {
                        vmfile_fops = *vmfile->f_op;
                        vmfile_fops.mmap = ashmem_vmfile_mmap;
                        vmfile_fops.get_unmapped_area =
                                        ashmem_vmfile_get_unmapped_area;
                }
Er...  So it *is* modified down the road.  What, in your opinion, is signified
by the const you are adding?

Folks, could we please have the first "WARNING" in checkpatch.pl output replaced
with
"I'm a dumb script; this line looks like there might be something fishy in the
area.  Somebody smarter than me might want to take a look and figure out if
there's something wrong going on there.  From now on I'll mark all such places
with 'WARNING' (with the summary of heuristics that pointed to them), to avoid
repeating the above".

Pretty please?  This exact trap keeps snagging newbies - folks misinterpret
"this place might be worth looking into" for "great (s)tool says: this is
what's wrong there; must propitiate the great (s)tool!"

In this case the damage is minimal - the resulting change would be instantly
caught by compiler, so it's just a matter of mild embarrassment for poster.
In other cases results had been nowhere near as mild.

Incidentally, the place those heuristics had pointed too _DOES_ look fishy,
indeed.  What happens, AFAICS, is that the first time we hit that branch
(asma->file being NULL) we stash a copy of whatever file_operations we get
on file obtained by shmem_setup_file() (IOW, shmem_file_operations),
with ->mmap and ->get_unmapped_area replaced with local functions.
This is a bloody convoluted way to do things, not to mention being rather
brittle...