[Crash-utility] crash fails to build with gcc-4.5

Troy Heber troy.heber at hp.com
Tue Jan 26 14:38:48 UTC 2010


When trying to build crash with gcc-4.5 on x86-64 you get:

  unwind_x86_32_64.c:50:2: error: initializer element is not constant
  unwind_x86_32_64.c:50:2: error: (near initialization for 'reg_info[7].offs')
  unwind_x86_32_64.c:50:2: error: initializer element is not constant
  unwind_x86_32_64.c:50:2: error: (near initialization for 'reg_info[8].offs')
  unwind_x86_32_64.c:50:2: error: initializer element is not constant
  ...

When you start to dig into this you quickly end up playing with lots
of really fun macros from unwind_x86_64.h. Eventually, you end up
playing with this one:

	#define BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(e) (sizeof(char[1 - 2 * !!(e)]) - 1)

If you pull this macro out and play with it by itself it seems to
work fine with both gcc-4.5 and gcc < 4.5. It is only when it is used in
combinations with the other macro expression that gcc-4.5 fails to
evaluate it and I have no clue why. 

When looking at the BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO macro upstream in
include/linux/kernel.h we can see it has been replaced with this
version:

	#define BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(e) (sizeof(struct { int:-!!(e); }))

It turns out that gcc-4.5 is perfectly happy with the updated version! 

  This was done in commit: 8c87df457cb58fe75b9b893007917cf8095660a0

  BUILD_BUG_ON(): fix it and a couple of bogus uses of it

  gcc permitting variable length arrays makes the current construct used for
  BUILD_BUG_ON() useless, as that doesn't produce any diagnostic if the
  controlling expression isn't really constant.  Instead, this patch makes
  it so that a bit field gets used here.  Consequently, those uses where the
  condition isn't really constant now also need fixing.

  Note that in the gfp.h, kmemcheck.h, and virtio_config.h cases
  MAYBE_BUILD_BUG_ON() really just serves documentation purposes - even if
  the expression is compile time constant (__builtin_constant_p() yields
  true), the array is still deemed of variable length by gcc, and hence the
  whole expression doesn't have the intended effect.

It looks like this could end up being a potential bug in gcc. I'll
file a bug with gcc and try to provide them with a simplified test
case. However, since this macro changed upstream and acts as a
workaround for the issue I would propose making the update in crash as
well.

Troy

---
diff --git a/unwind_x86_64.h b/unwind_x86_64.h
index a79c2d5..52fcf7a 100644
--- a/unwind_x86_64.h
+++ b/unwind_x86_64.h
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ extern void free_unwind_table(void);
 #define offsetof(TYPE, MEMBER) ((size_t) &((TYPE *)0)->MEMBER)
 #define ARRAY_SIZE(x) (sizeof(x) / sizeof((x)[0]))
 #define BUILD_BUG_ON(condition) ((void)sizeof(char[1 - 2*!!(condition)]))
-#define BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(e) (sizeof(char[1 - 2 * !!(e)]) - 1)
+#define BUILD_BUG_ON_ZERO(e) (sizeof(struct { int:-!!(e); }))
 #define FIELD_SIZEOF(t, f) (sizeof(((t*)0)->f))
 #define get_unaligned(ptr) (*(ptr))
 //#define __get_user(x,ptr)  __get_user_nocheck((x),(ptr),sizeof(*(ptr)))




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