Re: [PATCH v2] checkpatch: fix uninitialized return value in raw_line subroutine

From: Dwaipayan Ray
Date: Sun Apr 25 2021 - 04:00:37 EST


On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 1:14 PM Dwaipayan Ray <dwaipayanray1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> In case the second argument to raw_line subroutine is 0,
> $line remains uninitialized and is returned back to the caller.
> If the caller then tries to perform string concatenation with
> that value, checkpatch throws an error:
>
> Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
> ./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
>
> Fix it by providing an empty string as the initial value
> for $line.
>

Please ignore this patch. There was a different problem which
caused the error.

The following line triggers the errors:
DEVICE_ATTR(foo, 0777, foo_show, foo_store)
(notice the missing semicolon)

Perl throws the following errors when checkpatch is run on
a file containing that line:

Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at
./scripts/checkpatch.pl line 1960.

Setting $line to "" in raw_line fixed it. Probably -1 is being
sent as the second argument to raw_line which results
in the uninitialized thing.

Thanks,
Dwaipayan