The introduction of these dummy BUILD_BUG_ON stubs dates back to commit 903c0c7cdc21 ("sparse: define dummy BUILD_BUG_ON definition for sparse").
At that time, BUILD_BUG_ON() was implemented with the negative array trick *and* the link-time trick, like this: extern int __build_bug_on_failed; #define BUILD_BUG_ON(condition) \ do { \ ((void)sizeof(char[1 - 2*!!(condition)])); \ if (condition) __build_bug_on_failed = 1; \ } while(0) Sparse is more strict about the negative array trick than GCC because Sparse requires the array length to be really constant. Here is the simple test code for the macro above: static const int x = 0; BUILD_BUG_ON(x); GCC is absolutely fine with it (-Wvla was not enabled at that time), but Sparse warns like this: error: bad constant expression error: cannot size expression (If you are using a newer version of Sparse, you will see a different warning message, "warning: Variable length array is used".) Anyway, Sparse was producing many false positive warnings, hence silenced. With the previous commit, the leftover negative array trick is gone. Sparse is fine with the current BUILD_BUG_ON(), which is implemented by using the 'error' attribute. (assuming your Sparse version supports -Wno-unknown-attribute option) I am keeping the stub for BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(). Otherwise, Sparse would complain about the following code, which GCC is fine with: static const int x = 0; int y = BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(x); Signed-off-by: Masahiro Yamada <yamada.masah...@socionext.com> Acked-by: Kees Cook <keesc...@chromium.org> --- Changes in v3: - Add Kees' Acked-by - Clarify log that BUILD_BUG_ON() *was* producing false positives - Keep the stub for BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO() Changes in v2: - Fix a coding style error (two consecutive blank lines) include/linux/build_bug.h | 22 +++++++--------------- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-) diff --git a/include/linux/build_bug.h b/include/linux/build_bug.h index d415c64..faeec74 100644 --- a/include/linux/build_bug.h +++ b/include/linux/build_bug.h @@ -5,21 +5,8 @@ #include <linux/compiler.h> #ifdef __CHECKER__ -#define __BUILD_BUG_ON_NOT_POWER_OF_2(n) (0) -#define BUILD_BUG_ON_NOT_POWER_OF_2(n) (0) #define BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(e) (0) -#define BUILD_BUG_ON_INVALID(e) (0) -#define BUILD_BUG_ON_MSG(cond, msg) (0) -#define BUILD_BUG_ON(condition) (0) -#define BUILD_BUG() (0) #else /* __CHECKER__ */ - -/* Force a compilation error if a constant expression is not a power of 2 */ -#define __BUILD_BUG_ON_NOT_POWER_OF_2(n) \ - BUILD_BUG_ON(((n) & ((n) - 1)) != 0) -#define BUILD_BUG_ON_NOT_POWER_OF_2(n) \ - BUILD_BUG_ON((n) == 0 || (((n) & ((n) - 1)) != 0)) - /* * Force a compilation error if condition is true, but also produce a * result (of value 0 and type size_t), so the expression can be used @@ -27,6 +14,13 @@ * aren't permitted). */ #define BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(e) (sizeof(struct { int:(-!!(e)); })) +#endif /* __CHECKER__ */ + +/* Force a compilation error if a constant expression is not a power of 2 */ +#define __BUILD_BUG_ON_NOT_POWER_OF_2(n) \ + BUILD_BUG_ON(((n) & ((n) - 1)) != 0) +#define BUILD_BUG_ON_NOT_POWER_OF_2(n) \ + BUILD_BUG_ON((n) == 0 || (((n) & ((n) - 1)) != 0)) /* * BUILD_BUG_ON_INVALID() permits the compiler to check the validity of the @@ -64,6 +58,4 @@ */ #define BUILD_BUG() BUILD_BUG_ON_MSG(1, "BUILD_BUG failed") -#endif /* __CHECKER__ */ - #endif /* _LINUX_BUILD_BUG_H */ -- 2.7.4