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ext4: use flexible-array members in struct dx_node and struct dx_root
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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] KSPP#21
[3] commit 7649773 ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@embeddedor.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200213160648.GA7054@embeddedor
Signed-off-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu>
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GustavoARSilva authored and tytso committed Mar 6, 2020
1 parent 92e9c58 commit 6cfb061
Showing 1 changed file with 2 additions and 2 deletions.
4 changes: 2 additions & 2 deletions fs/ext4/namei.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -233,13 +233,13 @@ struct dx_root
u8 unused_flags;
}
info;
struct dx_entry entries[0];
struct dx_entry entries[];
};

struct dx_node
{
struct fake_dirent fake;
struct dx_entry entries[0];
struct dx_entry entries[];
};


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