lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2006]   [Sep]   [8]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
Patch in this message
/
Date
From
Subject[RFC 1/2] kmemdup: introduce
One of idiomatic ways to duplicate a region of memory is

dst = kmalloc(len, GFP_KERNEL);
if (!dst)
return -ENOMEM;
memcpy(dst, src, len);

which is neat code except a programmer needs to write size twice. Which
sometimes leads to mistakes. If len passed to kmalloc is smaller that len
passed to memcpy, it's straight overwrite-beyond-end. If len passed to
memcpy is smaller than len passed to kmalloc, it's either a) legit
behaviour ;-), or b) cloned buffer will contain garbage in second half.

[TODO: list of such bugs in Linux, other kernels, userspace]

If programmer is given only one place to play with lengths, I believe, such
mistakes could be avoided.

With kmemdup, the snippet above will be rewritten as:

dst = kmemdup(src, len, GFP_KERNEL);
if (!dst)
return -ENOMEM;

This also leads to smaller code (kzalloc effect).

Not tested yet, this is for semantics commentary.

The plan is to
a) merge kmemdup
b) get some users (patch #2)
c) stick kmemdup conversion into -kj TODO
d) grep for memcpy and caaaarefully convert the rest. Promise to be a bastard.
----------------
e) try to get memdup(3) somehow, but I'm probably dreaming...

P.S.: No idea why kstrdup() and kzalloc() use _____________kmalloc(),
but I followed the crowd.
---

include/linux/string.h | 1 +
mm/util.c | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 19 insertions(+)

--- a/include/linux/string.h
+++ b/include/linux/string.h
@@ -99,6 +99,7 @@ extern void * memchr(const void *,int,__
#endif

extern char *kstrdup(const char *s, gfp_t gfp);
+extern void *kmemdup(const void *src, size_t len, gfp_t gfp);

#ifdef __cplusplus
}
--- a/mm/util.c
+++ b/mm/util.c
@@ -40,6 +40,24 @@ char *kstrdup(const char *s, gfp_t gfp)
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(kstrdup);

+/**
+ * kmemdup - duplicate region of memory
+ *
+ * @src: memory region to duplicate
+ * @len: memory region length
+ * @gfp: GFP mask to use
+ */
+void *kmemdup(const void *src, size_t len, gfp_t gfp)
+{
+ void *p;
+
+ p = ____kmalloc(len, gfp);
+ if (p)
+ memcpy(p, src, len);
+ return p;
+}
+EXPORT_SYMBOL(kmemdup);
+
/*
* strndup_user - duplicate an existing string from user space
*
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/

\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2006-09-09 03:39    [W:0.039 / U:0.312 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site