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gcc-15: make 'unterminated string initialization' just a warning
gcc-15 enabling -Wunterminated-string-initialization in -Wextra by
default was done with the best intentions, but the warning is still
quite broken.
What annoys me about the warning is that this is a very traditional AND
CORRECT way to initialize fixed byte arrays in C:
unsigned char hex[16] = "0123456789abcdef";
and we use this all over the kernel. And the warning is fine, but gcc
developers apparently never made a reasonable way to disable it. As is
(sadly) tradition with these things.
Yes, there's "__attribute__((nonstring))", and we have a macro to make
that absolutely disgusting syntax more palatable (ie the kernel syntax
for that monstrosity is just "__nonstring").
But that attribute is misdesigned. What you'd typically want to do is
tell the compiler that you are using a type that isn't a string but a
byte array, but that doesn't work at all:
warning: ‘nonstring’ attribute does not apply to types [-Wattributes]
and because of this fundamental mis-design, you then have to mark each
instance of that pattern.
This is particularly noticeable in our ACPI code, because ACPI has this
notion of a 4-byte "type name" that gets used all over, and is exactly
this kind of byte array.
This is a sad oversight, because the warning is useful, but really would
be so much better if gcc had also given a sane way to indicate that we
really just want a byte array type at a type level, not the broken "each
and every array definition" level.
So now instead of creating a nice "ACPI name" type using something like
typedef char acpi_name_t[4] __nonstring;
we have to do things like
char name[ACPI_NAMESEG_SIZE] __nonstring;
in every place that uses this concept and then happens to have the
typical initializers.
This is annoying me mainly because I think the warning _is_ a good
warning, which is why I'm not just turning it off in disgust. But it is
hampered by this bad implementation detail.
[ And obviously I'm doing this now because system upgrades for me are
something that happen in the middle of the release cycle: don't do it
before or during travel, or just before or during the busy merge
window period. ]
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
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