Re: Suggestion on "int len" sanity

[XIAO Gang <xiao@unice.fr>]

Willy Tarreau wrote:

>> On the other hand, when a variable is named "len" or "length", it is 
>> usually used for length and never should go negative. So could I suggest 
>> that the declarations of these variables to be uniformized to "size_t", 
>> via a gradual but sysmatic cleanup?

> Probably true for most cases, but be careful of code which would use
> -1 to report some errors if such thing exists.

I agree that they are probably not all replaceable, and care must be taken.

Examples:

1. In the types of sys_[gs]ethostname, sys_[gs]etdomainname, "int len" could be replaced
by "unsigned int" or "size_t" and sanity check simplified.

2. In mm/shmem.c, shmem_symlink(), we have "len = strlen(symname) + 1;". Although it is highly
improbable that strlen(symname) overflows, it is more correct to declare "size_t len;".

3. The similar situation occurs in fs/namei.c, vfs_readlink(). Here it does not matter if len
is declared to be unsigned, but for size_t, we have to take care about the size of size_t.

-- 

XIAO Gang (~{P$8U~})                          xiao@unice.fr
          home page: pcmath126.unice.fr/xiao.html