2024-04-02 02:48:19

by Li zeming

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH] ext4: extents: Remove unnecessary ‘NULL’ values from ablocks

ablocks is assigned first, so it does not need to initialize the
assignment.

Signed-off-by: Li zeming <[email protected]>
---
fs/ext4/extents.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/ext4/extents.c b/fs/ext4/extents.c
index 4ab96f01a6f31..caace8c3fd3c1 100644
--- a/fs/ext4/extents.c
+++ b/fs/ext4/extents.c
@@ -1061,7 +1061,7 @@ static int ext4_ext_split(handle_t *handle, struct inode *inode,
int i = at, k, m, a;
ext4_fsblk_t newblock, oldblock;
__le32 border;
- ext4_fsblk_t *ablocks = NULL; /* array of allocated blocks */
+ ext4_fsblk_t *ablocks; /* array of allocated blocks */
gfp_t gfp_flags = GFP_NOFS;
int err = 0;
size_t ext_size = 0;
--
2.18.2



2024-04-02 03:55:51

by Theodore Ts'o

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ext4: extents: Remov e unnecessary ‘NULL’ values from ablocks

On Tue, Apr 02, 2024 at 10:48:04AM +0800, Li zeming wrote:
> ablocks is assigned first, so it does not need to initialize the
> assignment.

That's technically true, but the compiler is perfectly capable of
optimizing it out. So it's harmless, and removing it does make the
code a bit more fragile, since it needs to be set so that the cleanup
code doesn't accidentally dereference an uninitialized pointer.

Cheers,

- Ted

2024-04-08 20:51:38

by Andreas Dilger

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] ext4: extents: Remove unnecessary ‘NULL’ values from ablocks

On Apr 1, 2024, at 8:48 PM, Li zeming <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> ablocks is assigned first, so it does not need to initialize the
> assignment.

While it is true that "ablocks" is currently set before use,
this is happening a long way away from the variable declaration
and also "ablocks" is used after the "cleanup:" label error case:

cleanup:
if (bh) {
if (buffer_locked(bh))
unlock_buffer(bh);
brelse(bh);
}

if (err) {
/* free all allocated blocks in error case */
for (i = 0; i < depth; i++) {
if (!ablocks[i])
continue;
ext4_free_blocks(handle, inode, NULL, ablocks[i], 1,
EXT4_FREE_BLOCKS_METADATA);
}
}
kfree(ablocks);

So there is definitely a risk that a code change in the future
would introduce hard-to-debug problems, crashes, or even just
spurious static code analysis warnings. My recommendation would
be to keep this 1-cycle local variable initialization in place
rather than spend hours or days trying to debug and fix a crash
here in the future.

Cheers, Andreas

>
> Signed-off-by: Li zeming <[email protected]>
> ---
> fs/ext4/extents.c | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/ext4/extents.c b/fs/ext4/extents.c
> index 4ab96f01a6f31..caace8c3fd3c1 100644
> --- a/fs/ext4/extents.c
> +++ b/fs/ext4/extents.c
> @@ -1061,7 +1061,7 @@ static int ext4_ext_split(handle_t *handle, struct inode *inode,
> int i = at, k, m, a;
> ext4_fsblk_t newblock, oldblock;
> __le32 border;
> - ext4_fsblk_t *ablocks = NULL; /* array of allocated blocks */
> + ext4_fsblk_t *ablocks; /* array of allocated blocks */
> gfp_t gfp_flags = GFP_NOFS;
> int err = 0;
> size_t ext_size = 0;
> --
> 2.18.2
>


Cheers, Andreas






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