Re: [PATCH][next] fpga: dfl.h: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member

From: Moritz Fischer
Date: Sat Mar 21 2020 - 16:10:43 EST


On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 04:21:53PM -0500, Gustavo A. R. Silva wrote:
> 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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> drivers/fpga/dfl.h | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/drivers/fpga/dfl.h b/drivers/fpga/dfl.h
> index 4a9a33cd9979..74784d3cfe7c 100644
> --- a/drivers/fpga/dfl.h
> +++ b/drivers/fpga/dfl.h
> @@ -235,7 +235,7 @@ struct dfl_feature_platform_data {
> int open_count;
> void *private;
> int num;
> - struct dfl_feature features[0];
> + struct dfl_feature features[];
> };
>
> static inline
> --
> 2.23.0
>
Applied to for-next,

Thanks