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

Gustavo A. R. Silva
2020-05-07T18:39:32Z

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>
---
security/apparmor/apparmorfs.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/security/apparmor/apparmorfs.c b/security/apparmor/apparmorfs.c
index 280741fc0f5f..299994ff9168 100644
--- a/security/apparmor/apparmorfs.c
+++ b/security/apparmor/apparmorfs.c
@@ -839,7 +839,7 @@ static ssize_t query_label(char *buf, size_t buf_len,
struct multi_transaction {
struct kref count;
ssize_t size;
- char data[0];
+ char data[];
};

#define MULTI_TRANSACTION_LIMIT (PAGE_SIZE - sizeof(struct multi_transaction))