44720996e2
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>
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.