50c3c5e1c1
Old code in the kernel uses 1-byte and 0-byte arrays to indicate the
presence of a "variable length array":
struct something {
int length;
u8 data[1];
};
struct something *instance;
instance = kmalloc(sizeof(*instance) + size, GFP_KERNEL);
instance->length = size;
memcpy(instance->data, source, size);
There is also 0-byte arrays. Both cases pose confusion for things like
sizeof(), CONFIG_FORTIFY_SOURCE, etc.[1] Instead, the preferred mechanism
to declare variable-length types such as the one above is a flexible array
member[2] which need to be the last member of a structure and empty-sized:
struct something {
int stuff;
u8 data[];
};
Also, 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
unadvertenly introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.
[1] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[2] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")
Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavo@embeddedor.com>
Signed-off-by: Johan Hovold <johan@kernel.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.