perf/core: Replace zero-length array with flexible-array

The current codebase makes use of the zero-length array language
extension to the C90 standard, but the preferred mechanism to declare
variable-length types such as these ones is a flexible array member[1][2],
introduced in C99:

struct foo {
        int stuff;
        struct boo array[];
};

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
inadvertently introduced[3] to the codebase from now on.

Also, notice that, dynamic memory allocations won't be affected by
this change:

"Flexible array members have incomplete type, and so the sizeof operator
may not be applied. As a quirk of the original implementation of
zero-length arrays, sizeof evaluates to zero."[1]

sizeof(flexible-array-member) triggers a warning because flexible array
members have incomplete type[1]. There are some instances of code in
which the sizeof operator is being incorrectly/erroneously applied to
zero-length arrays and the result is zero. Such instances may be hiding
some bugs. So, this work (flexible-array member conversions) will also
help to get completely rid of those sorts of issues.

This issue was found with the help of Coccinelle.

[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Zero-Length.html
[2] https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/21
[3] commit 76497732932f ("cxgb3/l2t: Fix undefined behaviour")

Signed-off-by: Gustavo A. R. Silva <gustavoars@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra (Intel) <peterz@infradead.org>
Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20200511201227.GA14041@embeddedor

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/perf_event.h b/include/linux/perf_event.h
index 87e21681759c..d7b610c4eebd 100644
--- a/include/linux/perf_event.h
+++ b/include/linux/perf_event.h
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ struct perf_guest_info_callbacks {
 
 struct perf_callchain_entry {
 	__u64				nr;
-	__u64				ip[0]; /* /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack */
+	__u64				ip[]; /* /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_max_stack */
 };
 
 struct perf_callchain_entry_ctx {
@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ struct perf_raw_record {
 struct perf_branch_stack {
 	__u64				nr;
 	__u64				hw_idx;
-	struct perf_branch_entry	entries[0];
+	struct perf_branch_entry	entries[];
 };
 
 struct task_struct;