Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 01 Jun 2005 09:06:33 +0200 | From | XIAO Gang <> | Subject | Suggestion on "int len" sanity |
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I would like to make a security suggestion.
There are many length variables in the kernel, locally declared as "len" or "length", either as "int", "unsigned int" or "size_t". However, declaring a length as "int" leads easily to an erroneous situation, as the author (or even a code checker) might make the implicite hypothesis that the length is positive, so that it is enough to make a sanity check of the kind
if (length > limit) ERROR;
which is not enough.
On the other hand, when a variable is named "len" or "length", it is usually used for length and never should go negative. So could I suggest that the declarations of these variables to be uniformized to "size_t", via a gradual but sysmatic cleanup?
--
XIAO Gang (~{P$8U~}) xiao@unice.fr home page: pcmath126.unice.fr/xiao.html
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