Re: [PATCH tip/core/rcu 11/11] jiffies: Avoid undefined behaviorfrom signed overflow

From: Josh Triplett
Date: Sun Aug 18 2013 - 21:21:13 EST


On Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 05:41:20PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 08:23:51PM -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 17, 2013 at 06:37:56PM -0700, Paul E. McKenney wrote:
> > > From: "Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > >
> > > According to the C standard 3.4.3p3, overflow of a signed integer results
> > > in undefined behavior. This commit therefore changes the definitions
> > > of time_after(), time_after_eq(), time_after64(), and time_after_eq64()
> > > to avoid this undefined behavior. The trick is that the subtraction
> > > is done using unsigned arithmetic, which according to 6.2.5p9 cannot
> > > overflow because it is defined as modulo arithmetic. This has the added
> > > (though admittedly quite small) benefit of shortening two lines of code
> > > by four characters each.
> > >
> > > Note that the C standard considers the cast from unsigned to
> > > signed to be implementation-defined, see 6.3.1.3p3. However, on a
> > > two-complement system, an implementation that defines anything other
> > > than a reinterpretation of the bits is free come to me, and I will be
> >
> > s/free come/free to come/
>
> Good catch, fixed!

Just realized when looking at this again that there's another typo:
"two-complement" should be "two's-complement".

> Thanx, Paul
>
> > > happy to act as a witness for its being committed to an insane asylum.
> >
> > With the typo above fixed:
> > Reviewed-by: Josh Triplett <josh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >
>
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