On Friday, March 13, 2015 10:14:27 AM Ian Lepore wrote:
> On Fri, 2015-03-13 at 06:24 -0400, John Baldwin wrote:
> > On Thursday, March 12, 2015 05:24:51 PM Ian Lepore wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2015-03-12 at 17:02 -0400, Ryan Stone wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 2:06 PM, Ian Lepore <i...@freebsd.org> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > >   Nullterminate strings returned via sysctl.
> > > > >
> > > > >   PR:           195668
> > > > >
> > > > 
> > > > To quote the manpage:
> > > > 
> > > > > The *sbuf* family of functions allows one to safely
> > > > > allocate, construct and release bounded null-terminated
> > > > > strings in kernel space.
> > > > 
> > > > IMO the sbuf API is broken if we have to explicitly null-terminate the
> > > > string ourselves.
> > > 
> > > If we want the nullterm to be counted in the length of data in the
> > > buffer (and thus get transmitted back across the syscall boundary) we
> > > need to put an explicit counted nullterm byte into the buffer.
> > > 
> > > I had started down the path of making that (counting the nullterm byte
> > > as part of the data in the buffer) a feature of sbuf that you could set
> > > with a flag, but then whoever added sbuf_new_for_sysctl() didn't
> > > propagate the flags field through the new function and I decided to not
> > > go off into the weeds making a new flavor of that takes flags.
> > 
> > One suggestion would be to consider using '\0' for a nul character instead 
> > of
> > a bare 0.  To me that communicates the intention more clearly to the reader.
> > (One of the things I did not like about C++ < C++11 was the use of 0 for
> > NULL.  I much prefer nullptr and NULL in C over bare 0's for pointers for
> > similar clarity reasons.)
> > 
> 
> I have waffled back and forth between preferring 0 or '\0' for 30 years,
> I just seem to go through phases with nullterm expression.
> 
> In general I'm glad I got called away to an onsite meeting yesterday and
> didn't get far with these changes, because the more I think about it,
> the less satisfied I am with this expedient fix.  The other fix I
> started on, where a new SBUF_COUNTNUL flag can be set to inform the
> sbuf_finish() code that you want the terminating nul counted in the data
> length just feels like a better fit for the overall "automaticness" of
> how the sbuf stuff works.

Hmm, I actually think that it's a bug that the terminating nul isn't included
when draining.  If we fixed that then I think that fixes most of these?
The places that explicitly use 'sysctl_handle_string()' with an sbuf
should probably just be using sbuf_len(sb) + 1' explicitly.  (Another
option would be to have a sysctl_handle_sbuf() that was a wrapper around
sysctl_handle_string() that included the + 1 to hide that detail if there is
more than one.)

-- 
John Baldwin
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