https://github.com/torvalds/linux
Revision 44720996e2d79e47d508b0abe99b931a726a3197 authored by Linus Torvalds on 09 May 2020, 21:52:44 UTC, committed by Linus Torvalds on 09 May 2020, 21:52:44 UTC
This is another fine warning, related to the 'zero-length-bounds' one,
but hitting the same historical code in the kernel.

Because C didn't historically support flexible array members, we have
code that instead uses a one-sized array, the same way we have cases of
zero-sized arrays.

The one-sized arrays come from either not wanting to use the gcc
zero-sized array extension, or from a slight convenience-feature, where
particularly for strings, the size of the structure now includes the
allocation for the final NUL character.

So with a "char name[1];" at the end of a structure, you can do things
like

       v = my_malloc(sizeof(struct vendor) + strlen(name));

and avoid the "+1" for the terminator.

Yes, the modern way to do that is with a flexible array, and using
'offsetof()' instead of 'sizeof()', and adding the "+1" by hand.  That
also technically gets the size "more correct" in that it avoids any
alignment (and thus padding) issues, but this is another long-term
cleanup thing that will not happen for 5.7.

So disable the warning for now, even though it's potentially quite
useful.  Having a slew of warnings that then hide more urgent new issues
is not an improvement.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
1 parent 5c45de2
History
Tip revision: 44720996e2d79e47d508b0abe99b931a726a3197 authored by Linus Torvalds on 09 May 2020, 21:52:44 UTC
gcc-10: disable 'array-bounds' warning for now
Tip revision: 4472099
File Mode Size
kvm
lib
Makefile -rw-r--r-- 54 bytes

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