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Subject: Re: [PATCH] scsi: libsas: Replace zero-length array with
 flexible-array
To:     "Gustavo A. R. Silva" <gustavoars@kernel.org>,
        "James E.J. Bottomley" <jejb@linux.ibm.com>,
        "Martin K. Petersen" <martin.petersen@oracle.com>
CC:     <linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org>, <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
References: <20200507192147.GA16206@embeddedor>
From:   Jason Yan <yanaijie@huawei.com>
Message-ID: <56d7568f-ac24-fef0-e51f-4523cc75f26f@huawei.com>
Date:   Mon, 11 May 2020 16:33:35 +0800
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?? 2020/5/8 3:21, Gustavo A. R. Silva д??:
> 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]
> 
> sizeof(flexible-array-member) triggers a warning because flexible array
> members have incomplete type[1]. There are some instances of code in
> which the sizeof operator is being incorrectly/erroneously applied to
> zero-length arrays and the result is zero. Such instances may be hiding
> some bugs. So, this work (flexible-array member conversions) will also
> help to get completely rid of those sorts of issues.
> 
> 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<gustavoars@kernel.org>

Reviewed-by: Jason Yan <yanaijie@huawei.com>