I am going to quote Lee Jones who has been doing some snprintf -> scnprintf refactorings:
"There is a general misunderstanding amongst engineers that {v}snprintf() returns the length of the data *actually* encoded into the destination array. However, as per the C99 standard {v}snprintf() really returns the length of the data that *would have been* written if there were enough space for it. This misunderstanding has led to buffer-overruns in the past. It's generally considered safer to use the {v}scnprintf() variants in their place (or even sprintf() in simple cases). So let's do that." To help prevent new instances of snprintf() from popping up, let's add a check to checkpatch.pl. Suggested-by: Finn Thain <fth...@linux-m68k.org> Signed-off-by: Justin Stitt <justinst...@google.com> --- Changes in v6: - move capture group to only include symbol name (not spaces or paren) - Link to v5: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240422-snprintf-checkpatch-v5-1-f1e90bf71...@google.com Changes in v5: - use capture groups to let the user know which variation they used - Link to v4: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240408-snprintf-checkpatch-v4-1-8697c96ac...@google.com Changes in v4: - also check for vsnprintf variant (thanks Bill) - Link to v3: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240315-snprintf-checkpatch-v3-1-a451e7664...@google.com Changes in v3: - fix indentation - add reference link (https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/105) (thanks Joe) - Link to v2: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240221-snprintf-checkpatch-v2-1-9baeb59da...@google.com Changes in v2: - Had a vim moment and deleted a character before sending the patch. - Replaced the character :) - Link to v1: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240221-snprintf-checkpatch-v1-1-3ac5025b5...@google.com --- >From a discussion here [1]. [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/0f9c95f9-2c14-eee6-7faf-635880edc...@linux-m68k.org/ --- scripts/checkpatch.pl | 6 ++++++ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+) diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl index 9c4c4a61bc83..bdae8a7ae5ed 100755 --- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl +++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl @@ -7012,6 +7012,12 @@ sub process { "Prefer strscpy, strscpy_pad, or __nonstring over strncpy - see: https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/90\n" . $herecurr); } +# {v}snprintf uses that should likely be {v}scnprintf + if ($line =~ /\b((v|)snprintf)\s*\(/) { + WARN("SNPRINTF", + "Prefer ${2}scnprintf over $1 - see: https://github.com/KSPP/linux/issues/105\n" . $herecurr); + } + # ethtool_sprintf uses that should likely be ethtool_puts if ($line =~ /\bethtool_sprintf\s*\(\s*$FuncArg\s*,\s*$FuncArg\s*\)/) { if (WARN("PREFER_ETHTOOL_PUTS", --- base-commit: b401b621758e46812da61fa58a67c3fd8d91de0d change-id: 20240221-snprintf-checkpatch-a864ed67ebd0 Best regards, -- Justin Stitt <justinst...@google.com>