Re: [PATCH v5] alloc: fix dangling pointer in alloc_state cleanup

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



By *s I am referring to *s_ so a sanity check with: if (!*s_) return;

On 05/09/2025 02:07, ノウラ | Flare wrote:
No. I am confused here.

> It is a programming error, period.  Do not silently return. That's
> not being defensive.  That is sweeping a problem under the rug.

Yet

> +    if (!s) return;

However, I agree with Peff. After calling alloc_state_free_and_null(&foo)
Having foo == NULL is an expected behavior, especially since the function
Is designed to free the memory and null out the caller’s pointer using
A double pointer ensuring the helper is idempotent

So, calling it again on the same pointer is safe because it simply
no-ops if the memory is already freed

Regarding the sanity check, it should be:

+ if (!*s) return;

The reasoning is the following:

=> s is the double pointer (the address of the caller’s pointer)
=> *s is the actual pointer to the memory we want to free

Thus, we check !*s to allow the function to safely handle already-NULL pointers But if we instead checked !s then we would be testing whether the caller passed
A NULL double pointer which is a programmer error
So silently returning on !s would hide a bug

Finally, I'd appreciate more explicit instructions.

On 05/09/2025 00:26, Junio C Hamano wrote:
Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> writes:

It's probably not worth going back and forth on this too much, but I
thought the happy medium was:

   if (!s)
    return;

That is, it is perfectly reasonable and friendly for it to be a noop to
free-and-null a NULL value (either never initialized, or already freed).
The overkill was worrying about whether somebody passed in a NULL
double-pointer. I.e., doing:

   alloc_state_free_and_null(&foo);

is reasonable and should be idempotent
... when foo == NULL, e.g., after alloc_state_free_and_null(&foo)
has just successfully returned?

I can by that argument with the reasoning in the updated log message
below.  Does it good to everybody?

Thanks.

--- >8 ---
From: ノウラ | Flare <nouraellm@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [PATCH] alloc: fix dangling pointer in alloc_state cleanup

All callers of clear_alloc_state() immediately free what they
cleared, so currently it does not hurt anybody that the
alloc_state is left in an unreusable state, but it is an
error-prone API. Replace it with a new function that clears but
in addition frees the structure, as well as NULLing the pointer
that points at it and adjust existing callers.

As it is a moral equivalent of FREE_AND_NULL(), except that what it
frees has internal structure that needs to be cleaned, allow the
helper to be called twice in a row, by making a call with a pointer
to a pointer variable that already is NULLed.

While at it, rename allocate_alloc_state() and name the new
function alloc_state_free_and_null(), to follow more closely the
function naming convention specified in the CodingGuidelines
(namely, functions about S are named with S_ prefix and then
verb).

Signed-off-by: ノウラ | Flare <nouraellm@xxxxxxxxx>
Helped-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx>
---
  alloc.c  | 10 ++++++++--
  alloc.h  |  4 ++--
  object.c | 26 ++++++++++----------------
  3 files changed, 20 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)

diff --git a/alloc.c b/alloc.c
index 377e80f5dd..533a045c2a 100644
--- a/alloc.c
+++ b/alloc.c
@@ -36,19 +36,25 @@ struct alloc_state {
      int slab_nr, slab_alloc;
  };
  -struct alloc_state *allocate_alloc_state(void)
+struct alloc_state *alloc_state_alloc(void)
  {
      return xcalloc(1, sizeof(struct alloc_state));
  }
  -void clear_alloc_state(struct alloc_state *s)
+void alloc_state_free_and_null(struct alloc_state **s_)
  {
+    struct alloc_state *s = *s_;
+
+    if (!s)
+        return;
+
      while (s->slab_nr > 0) {
          s->slab_nr--;
          free(s->slabs[s->slab_nr]);
      }
        FREE_AND_NULL(s->slabs);
+    FREE_AND_NULL(*s_);
  }
    static inline void *alloc_node(struct alloc_state *s, size_t node_size)
diff --git a/alloc.h b/alloc.h
index 3f4a0ad310..87a47a9709 100644
--- a/alloc.h
+++ b/alloc.h
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ void *alloc_commit_node(struct repository *r);
  void *alloc_tag_node(struct repository *r);
  void *alloc_object_node(struct repository *r);
  -struct alloc_state *allocate_alloc_state(void);
-void clear_alloc_state(struct alloc_state *s);
+struct alloc_state *alloc_state_alloc(void);
+void alloc_state_free_and_null(struct alloc_state **s_);
    #endif
diff --git a/object.c b/object.c
index c1553ee433..986114a6db 100644
--- a/object.c
+++ b/object.c
@@ -517,12 +517,11 @@ struct parsed_object_pool *parsed_object_pool_new(struct repository *repo)
      memset(o, 0, sizeof(*o));
        o->repo = repo;
-    o->blob_state = allocate_alloc_state();
-    o->tree_state = allocate_alloc_state();
-    o->commit_state = allocate_alloc_state();
-    o->tag_state = allocate_alloc_state();
-    o->object_state = allocate_alloc_state();
-
+    o->blob_state = alloc_state_alloc();
+    o->tree_state = alloc_state_alloc();
+    o->commit_state = alloc_state_alloc();
+    o->tag_state = alloc_state_alloc();
+    o->object_state = alloc_state_alloc();
      o->is_shallow = -1;
      CALLOC_ARRAY(o->shallow_stat, 1);
  @@ -573,16 +572,11 @@ void parsed_object_pool_clear(struct parsed_object_pool *o)
      o->buffer_slab = NULL;
        parsed_object_pool_reset_commit_grafts(o);
-    clear_alloc_state(o->blob_state);
-    clear_alloc_state(o->tree_state);
-    clear_alloc_state(o->commit_state);
-    clear_alloc_state(o->tag_state);
-    clear_alloc_state(o->object_state);
+    alloc_state_free_and_null(&o->blob_state);
+    alloc_state_free_and_null(&o->tree_state);
+    alloc_state_free_and_null(&o->commit_state);
+    alloc_state_free_and_null(&o->tag_state);
+    alloc_state_free_and_null(&o->object_state);
      stat_validity_clear(o->shallow_stat);
-    FREE_AND_NULL(o->blob_state);
-    FREE_AND_NULL(o->tree_state);
-    FREE_AND_NULL(o->commit_state);
-    FREE_AND_NULL(o->tag_state);
-    FREE_AND_NULL(o->object_state);
      FREE_AND_NULL(o->shallow_stat);
  }




[Index of Archives]     [Linux Kernel Development]     [Gcc Help]     [IETF Annouce]     [DCCP]     [Netdev]     [Networking]     [Security]     [V4L]     [Bugtraq]     [Yosemite]     [MIPS Linux]     [ARM Linux]     [Linux Security]     [Linux RAID]     [Linux SCSI]     [Fedora Users]

  Powered by Linux