[cfe-dev] RFC: static analysis, malloc annontation for return via pointer argument

[Anna Zaks]

On Jan 8, 2013, at 1:43 PM, Scott Parlane <scott at scottnz.com> wrote:

> Anna,
> 
> Where is the normal place to document such things ?

The checker itself would be a good place.

> Currently it takes 2 arguments, the family name and the argument number
> that is the reference to return into.
> 
> The binding thing is interesting.
> I could add an argument that is true/false indicating whether binding
> should occur, and always bind for < 0 is invalid (I haven't found any
> APIs where this isn't the case, yet)

I am not clear what you are talking about here. The return value on failure?

> 
> The ownership_returns attribute already has an option argument (which
> argument is the size) that would conflict with trying to overload it.
> I would have to add an optional argument that triggers byref, indicating
> which arguments is the reference, of course there is no way to tell
> which of these two optional cases is intended, without changing the api
> for the ownership_returns attribute.
> 
OK.

> 1) Yes, just working on this now.
> 2) oops, enabled the boundary marker in my editor now.
> 3) Yes.
> 
> I ran into a minor problem, if you call the returns_byref function
> twice, it doesn't notice that the memory leaks. Am I meant to test for
> this in the MallocMemAux function ? Or is some other function meant to
> notice ?
> 


Each allocation should return a different symbol. Each symbol should be tracked separately, so you should see 2 calls to MallocMemAux.

Maybe when you pass the pointer to the second call to the custom malloc function, the checker stops tracking the symbol as a result of pointerEscapes callback...

> Cheers,
> Scott
> 
> On Tue, 2013-01-08 at 09:57 -0800, Anna Zaks wrote:
>> Scott, 
>> 
>> I do not see the new attribute and it's arguments documented anywhere. (In one of the pervious emails, Ted asked for the semantics of the attribute.) What happens when the allocation function fails to allocate? This is important since the user code often does not free the pointer on the failure path. Not handling this case would lead to false positives.
>> 
>> Also, have you tried to reuse the existing "ownership_returns" attribute? I think that would be cleaner. However, it would be good to see if it can be elegantly extended or not.
>> 
>> Other minor comments:
>> 1) A lot of MallocMemRetPtrAux is a copy and paste from MallocMemAux. Is it possible to factor so that there is more code reuse?
>> 2) 80 column rule.
>> 3) We probably need more than one test.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Anna.
>> 
>> 
>> On Jan 6, 2013, at 10:00 PM, Scott Parlane <scott at scottnz.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> I have attached a new patch with the attribute name changed.
>>> 
>>> I think that extensions for size, family != malloc, binding return value
>>> to pointer can be done separately.
>>> 
>>> I need to implement the family support one as part of the work I'm
>>> currently doing. I intend to change it to name the free function to use,
>>> instead of the allocator, I think this will be simpler.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Scott
>>> 
>>> On Mon, 2012-12-17 at 15:32 -0800, Ted Kremenek wrote:
>>>> On Dec 17, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Scott Parlane <scott at scottnz.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> This patch allows for APIs were memory is allocated and placed in a
>>>>> pointer given to them. (like asprintf, but without the realloc
>>>>> feature)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks Scott.  I'm not such a fan of the name of the attribute.  Since
>>>> this is returning an object by reference, how
>>>> about ownership_returns_byref?  I'm sure others will have an opinion,
>>>> but ownership_returns_pointer really doesn't tell the user what this
>>>> attribute does.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> As for the implementation itself, it looks okay.  The annotation
>>>> support eventually needs to be migrated from the
>>>> alpha.unix.MallocWithAnnotations checker to the unix.Malloc checker
>>>> (same file, logic controlled with a flag), but that's a separate
>>>> issue.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Currently, when using a pointer to a stack variable as the input to
>>>>> the
>>>>> function, it declares the memory leak on the next source line after
>>>>> the
>>>>> stack variable is used. I think it should be declaring the leak on
>>>>> the
>>>>> last line of the current scope. Which is correct ?
>>>> 
>>>> The current behavior is correct.  The current scope could be very big,
>>>> and may end long after the leak occurs.  We have found that reporting
>>>> leaks as close as possible to where the leak occurred is a much better
>>>> experience for users.
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
> 
>