Re: [PATCH iwl-net] ice: health.c: fix compilation on gcc 7.5

[Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@kernel.org>]

On 05. 02. 25, 23:56, David Laight wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Feb 2025 20:45:46 +0000
> Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org> wrote:
> 
>> + Jiri
>>
>> On Wed, Feb 05, 2025 at 11:42:12AM +0100, Przemek Kitszel wrote:
>>> GCC 7 is not as good as GCC 8+ in telling what is a compile-time const,
>>> and thus could be used for static storage. So we could not use variables
>>> for that, no matter how much "const" keyword is sprinkled around.
>>>
>>> Excerpt from the report:
>>> My GCC is: gcc (Ubuntu 7.5.0-3ubuntu1~18.04) 7.5.0.
>>>
>>>    CC [M]  drivers/net/ethernet/stmicro/stmmac/stmmac_mdio.o
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/devlink/health.c:35:3: error: initializer element is not constant
>>>     ice_common_port_solutions, {ice_port_number_label}},
>>>     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/devlink/health.c:35:3: note: (near initialization for 'ice_health_status_lookup[0].solution')
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/devlink/health.c:35:31: error: initializer element is not constant
>>>     ice_common_port_solutions, {ice_port_number_label}},
>>>                                 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/devlink/health.c:35:31: note: (near initialization for 'ice_health_status_lookup[0].data_label[0]')
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/devlink/health.c:37:46: error: initializer element is not constant
>>>     "Change or replace the module or cable.", {ice_port_number_label}},
>>>                                                ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/devlink/health.c:37:46: note: (near initialization for 'ice_health_status_lookup[1].data_label[0]')
>>> drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/devlink/health.c:39:3: error: initializer element is not constant
>>>     ice_common_port_solutions, {ice_port_number_label}},
>>>     ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>
>>> Fixes: 85d6164ec56d ("ice: add fw and port health reporters")
>>> Reported-by: Qiuxu Zhuo <qiuxu.zhuo@intel.com>
>>> Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/CY8PR11MB7134BF7A46D71E50D25FA7A989F72@CY8PR11MB7134.namprd11.prod.outlook.com
>>> Signed-off-by: Przemek Kitszel <przemyslaw.kitszel@intel.com>
>>> ---
>>> I would really like to bump min gcc to 8.5 (RH 8 family),
>>> instead of supporting old Ubuntu. However SLES 15 is also stuck with gcc 7.5 :(
>>>
>>> CC: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
>>> CC: Kees Cook <kees@kernel.org>
>>> CC: Nick Desaulniers <nick.desaulniers@gmail.com>
>>
>> Hi Prezemek,
>>
>> I ran into a similar problem not so long ago and I'm wondering if
>> the following, based on a suggestion by Jiri Slaby, resolves your
>> problem.
> 
> I'm sure I remember from somewhere that although the variables are
> 'static const' they have to be real variables because they can still
> be patched.

Not sure what you mean -- using macros, they placed the strings into 
.rodata anyway.

Mind the difference between:
const char *X;
char *const X;
const char *const X;

They are all different and allow different things (X++, (*X)++, nothing).

Possibly, the problem above could be fixed by the third variant too, 
IMO. But is ineffective (having generated an unused pointer).

thanks,
-- 
js
suse labs