linux-kernel - [PATCH v2] scripts/tracepoint-update: fix memory leak in add

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Message-Id: <20260119114542.1714405-1-geoffreyhe2@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:45:42 +0000
From: Weigang He <geoffreyhe2@...il.com>
To: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-trace-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Weigang He <geoffreyhe2@...il.com>
Subject: [PATCH v2] scripts/tracepoint-update: fix memory leak in add_string() on failure

When realloc() fails in add_string(), the function returns -1 but leaves
*vals pointing to the previously allocated memory. This can cause memory
leaks in callers like make_trace_array() that return on error without
freeing the partially built array.

Fix this by freeing *vals and setting it to NULL when realloc() fails.
This makes the error handling self-contained in add_string() so callers
don't need to handle cleanup on failure.

This bug is found by my static analysis tool and my code review.

Signed-off-by: Weigang He <geoffreyhe2@...il.com>
---
 scripts/tracepoint-update.c | 2 ++
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

diff --git a/scripts/tracepoint-update.c b/scripts/tracepoint-update.c
index 90046aedc97b9..5cf43c0aac891 100644
--- a/scripts/tracepoint-update.c
+++ b/scripts/tracepoint-update.c
@@ -49,6 +49,8 @@ static int add_string(const char *str, const char ***vals, int *count)
 		array = realloc(array, sizeof(char *) * size);
 		if (!array) {
 			fprintf(stderr, "Failed memory allocation\n");
+			free(*vals);
+			*vals = NULL;
 			return -1;
 		}
 		*vals = array;
-- 
2.34.1