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net: mlxfw: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array member
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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]

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 7649773 ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@embeddedor.com>
Reviewed-by: Jiri Pirko <jiri@mellanox.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
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Gustavo A. R. Silva authored and David S. Miller committed Mar 4, 2020
1 parent e6a98f8 commit 30a87f1
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Showing 2 changed files with 2 additions and 2 deletions.
2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlxfw/mlxfw_mfa2.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -496,7 +496,7 @@ mlxfw_mfa2_file_component_tlv_get(const struct mlxfw_mfa2_file *mfa2_file,

struct mlxfw_mfa2_comp_data {
struct mlxfw_mfa2_component comp;
u8 buff[0];
u8 buff[];
};

static const struct mlxfw_mfa2_tlv_component_descriptor *
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2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlxfw/mlxfw_mfa2_tlv.h
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ struct mlxfw_mfa2_tlv {
u8 version;
u8 type;
__be16 len;
u8 data[0];
u8 data[];
} __packed;

static inline const struct mlxfw_mfa2_tlv *
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