On Mon, 2025-11-17 at 08:40 +0530, Ally Heev wrote:
> uninitialized pointers with __free attribute can cause undefined
> behavior as the memory randomly assigned to the pointer is freed
> automatically when the pointer goes out of scope.
> add check in checkpatch to detect such issues.
> 
> Suggested-by: Dan Carpenter <[email protected]>
> Link: 
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/
> Acked-by: Dan Williams <[email protected]>
> Signed-off-by: Ally Heev <[email protected]>
> ---
> Testing:
> ran checkpatch.pl before and after the change on
> crypto/asymmetric_keys/x509_public_key.c, which has
> both initialized with NULL and uninitialized pointers
> ---
> Changes in v4:
> - fixed UNINITIALIZED_PTR_WITH_FREE description
> - Link to v3: 
> https://lore.kernel.org/r/20251025-aheev-checkpatch-uninitialized-free-v3-1-a67f72b1c...@gmail.com
> 
> Changes in v3:
> - remove $FreeAttribute
> - Link to v2: 
> https://lore.kernel.org/r/20251024-aheev-checkpatch-uninitialized-free-v2-0-16c0900e8...@gmail.com
> 
> Changes in v2:
> - change cover letter and title to reflect new changes
> - fix regex to handle multiple declarations in a single line case
> - convert WARN to ERROR for uninitialized pointers
> - add a new WARN for pointers initialized with NULL
> - NOTE: tried handling multiple declarations on a single line by splitting
>         them and matching the parts with regex, but, it turned out to be
>       complex and overkill. Moreover, multi-line declarations pose a threat
> - Link to v1: 
> https://lore.kernel.org/r/20251021-aheev-checkpatch-uninitialized-free-v1-1-18fb01bc6...@gmail.com
> ---
>  Documentation/dev-tools/checkpatch.rst | 5 +++++
>  scripts/checkpatch.pl                  | 6 ++++++
>  2 files changed, 11 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/dev-tools/checkpatch.rst 
> b/Documentation/dev-tools/checkpatch.rst
> index 
> d5c47e560324fb2399a5b1bc99c891ed1de10535..c61a3892a60c13f7c5ba89e969e39a93a3dcd5bc
>  100644
> --- a/Documentation/dev-tools/checkpatch.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/dev-tools/checkpatch.rst
> @@ -1009,6 +1009,11 @@ Functions and Variables
>  
>        return bar;
>  
> +  **UNINITIALIZED_PTR_WITH_FREE**
> +    Pointers with __free attribute should be initialized. Not doing so
> +    may lead to undefined behavior as the memory assigned (garbage,
> +    in case not initialized) to the pointer is freed automatically
> +    when the pointer goes out of scope.
>  
>  Permissions
>  -----------
> diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
> index 
> 92669904eecc7a8d2afd3f2625528e02b6d17cd6..e697d81d71c0b3628f7b59807e8bc40d582621bb
>  100755
> --- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
> +++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
> @@ -7721,6 +7721,12 @@ sub process {
>                               ERROR("MISSING_SENTINEL", "missing sentinel in 
> ID array\n" . "$here\n$stat\n");
>                       }
>               }
> +
> +# check for uninitialized pointers with __free attribute
> +             while ($line =~ 
> /\*\s*($Ident)\s+__free\s*\(\s*$Ident\s*\)\s*[,;]/g) {
> +                     ERROR("UNINITIALIZED_PTR_WITH_FREE",
> +                           "pointer '$1' with __free attribute should be 
> initialized\n" . $herecurr);
> +             }
>       }
>  
>       # If we have no input at all, then there is nothing to report on
> 
> ---
> base-commit: 6548d364a3e850326831799d7e3ea2d7bb97ba08
> change-id: 20251021-aheev-checkpatch-uninitialized-free-5c39f75e10a1
> 
> Best regards,
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There's an ongoing discussion about making this rule global
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/58fd478f408a34b578ee8d949c5c4b4da4d4f41d.ca...@hansenpartnership.com/.
I will wait till weekend before making any more changes.

Also, CCing James Bottomley

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