[PATCH] fanotify: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array

Gustavo A. R. Silva
2020-05-07T18:48:06Z

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>
---
fs/notify/fanotify/fanotify.h | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/fs/notify/fanotify/fanotify.h b/fs/notify/fanotify/fanotify.h
index 35bfbf4a7aac..8ce7ccfc4b0d 100644
--- a/fs/notify/fanotify/fanotify.h
+++ b/fs/notify/fanotify/fanotify.h
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ struct fanotify_name_event {
__kernel_fsid_t fsid;
struct fanotify_fh dir_fh;
u8 name_len;
- char name[0];
+ char name[];
};

static inline struct fanotify_name_event *