[PATCH] checkpatch: Add warnings for using strn(cat|cpy)

Sean Anderson seanga2 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 11 02:45:27 CET 2021


strn(cat|cpy) has a bad habit of not nul-terminating the destination,
resulting in constructions like

	strncpy(foo, bar, sizeof(foo) - 1);
	foo[sizeof(foo) - 1] = '\0';

However, it is very easy to forget about this behavior and accidentally
leave a string unterminated. This has shown up in some recent coverity
scans [1, 2] (including code recently touched by yours truly).

Fortunately, the guys at OpenBSD came up with strl(cat|cpy), which always
nul-terminate strings. These functions are already in U-Boot, so we should
encourage new code to use them instead of strn(cat|cpy).

[1] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-March/442888.html
[2] https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2021-January/438073.html

Signed-off-by: Sean Anderson <seanga2 at gmail.com>
---

 scripts/checkpatch.pl           |  6 ++++++
 tools/patman/test_checkpatch.py | 14 +++++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
index 755f4802a4..91365a5529 100755
--- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
+++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
@@ -5892,6 +5892,12 @@ sub process {
 			}
 		}
 
+# prefer strl(cpy|cat) over strn(cpy|cat)
+		if ($line =~ /\bstrn(cpy|cat)\s*\(/) {
+			WARN("STRL",
+			     "strl$1 is preferred over strn$1 because it always produces a nul-terminated string\n" . $herecurr);
+		}
+
 # prefer usleep_range over udelay
 		if ($line =~ /\budelay\s*\(\s*(\d+)\s*\)/) {
 			my $delay = $1;
diff --git a/tools/patman/test_checkpatch.py b/tools/patman/test_checkpatch.py
index a4fec1d4c1..56af5265cc 100644
--- a/tools/patman/test_checkpatch.py
+++ b/tools/patman/test_checkpatch.py
@@ -353,7 +353,7 @@ index 0000000..2234c87
 
         Args:
             pm: PatchMaker object to use
-            msg" Expected message (e.g. 'LIVETREE')
+            msg: Expected message (e.g. 'LIVETREE')
             pmtype: Type of problem ('error', 'warning')
         """
         result = pm.run_checkpatch()
@@ -439,6 +439,18 @@ index 0000000..2234c87
         self.check_struct('per_device_auto', '_priv', 'DEVICE_PRIV_AUTO')
         self.check_struct('per_device_plat_auto', '_plat', 'DEVICE_PLAT_AUTO')
 
+    def check_strl(self, func):
+        """Check one of the checks for strn(cpy|cat)"""
+        pm = PatchMaker()
+        pm.add_line('common/main.c', "strn%s(foo, bar, sizeof(foo));" % func)
+        self.checkSingleMessage(pm, "STRL",
+            "strl%s is preferred over strn%s because it always produces a nul-terminated string\n"
+            % (func, func))
+
+    def testStrl(self):
+        """Check for uses of strn(cat|cpy)"""
+        self.check_strl("cat");
+        self.check_strl("cpy");
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()
-- 
2.30.1



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