Re: [PATCH 1/2] introduce "banned function" list

["Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 09:08:08PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> Ditto for sprintf, where you should _always_ be using at least xsnprintf
> (or some better tool, depending on the situation).  And for strncpy,
> strlcpy (or again, some better tool) is strictly an improvement.

Nitpick: this may be true for git, but it's not strictly true in all
cases.  I actually have a (non-git) case where strncpy *is* the right
tool.  And this is one where I'm copying a NUL-terminated string into
a fixed-length charater array (in the ext4 superblock) which is *not*
NUL-terminated.  In that case, strncpy works(); but strlcpy() does not
do what I want.

So I used strncpy() advisedly, and I ignore people running Coccinelle
scripts and blindly sending patches to "fix" ext4.

But perhaps that's also a solution for git?  You don't have to
necessarily put them on a banned list; you could instead have some
handy, pre-set scripts that scan the entire code base looking for
"bad" functions with cleanups automatically suggested.  This could be
run at patch review time, and/or periodically (especially before a
release).

						- Ted