[gdb/build] Disable attribute nonnull

With trunk gcc (12.0) we're running into a -Werror=nonnull-compare build
breaker in gdb, which caused a broader review of the usage of the nonnull
attribute.

The current conclusion is that it's best to disable this.  This is explained
at length in the gdbsupport/common-defs.h comment.

Tested by building with trunk gcc.

gdbsupport/ChangeLog:

2021-07-30  Tom de Vries  <tdevries@suse.de>

	* common-defs.h (ATTRIBUTE_NONNULL): Disable.

diff --git a/gdbsupport/ChangeLog b/gdbsupport/ChangeLog
index bb54ff82f866812e0a1d853ec8b9a9af4a3694a4..7f17e7a57e52cb1dec04eb40a619ea242ee37db2 100644 (file)
--- a/gdbsupport/ChangeLog
+++ b/gdbsupport/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2021-07-30  Tom de Vries  <tdevries@suse.de>
+
+       * common-defs.h (ATTRIBUTE_NONNULL): Disable.
+
 2021-07-05  Simon Marchi  <simon.marchi@polymtl.ca>
 
        * scoped_ignore_signal.h (struct scoped_ignore_signal)

diff --git a/gdbsupport/common-defs.h b/gdbsupport/common-defs.h
index 5b644010cd9fff3fbadf3b2150efc664eba4dc01..5678076575664633628da4efb85fb74925294006 100644 (file)
--- a/gdbsupport/common-defs.h
+++ b/gdbsupport/common-defs.h
@@ -110,6 +110,81 @@
 #undef ATTRIBUTE_PRINTF
 #define ATTRIBUTE_PRINTF _GL_ATTRIBUTE_FORMAT_PRINTF_STANDARD
 
+/* This is defined by ansidecl.h, but we disable the attribute.
+
+   Say a developer starts out with:
+   ...
+   extern void foo (void *ptr) __atttribute__((nonnull (1)));
+   void foo (void *ptr) {}
+   ...
+   with the idea in mind to catch:
+   ...
+   foo (nullptr);
+   ...
+   at compile time with -Werror=nonnull, and then adds:
+   ...
+    void foo (void *ptr) {
+   +  gdb_assert (ptr != nullptr);
+    }
+   ...
+   to catch:
+   ...
+   foo (variable_with_nullptr_value);
+   ...
+   at runtime as well.
+
+   Said developer then verifies that the assert works (using -O0), and commits
+   the code.
+
+   Some other developer then checks out the code and accidentally writes some
+   variant of:
+   ...
+   foo (variable_with_nullptr_value);
+   ...
+   and builds with -O2, and ... the assert doesn't trigger, because it's
+   optimized away by gcc.
+
+   There's no suppported recipe to prevent the assertion from being optimized
+   away (other than: build with -O0, or remove the nonnull attribute).  Note
+   that -fno-delete-null-pointer-checks does not help.  A patch was submitted
+   to improve gcc documentation to point this out more clearly (
+   https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc-patches/2021-July/576218.html ).  The
+   patch also mentions a possible workaround that obfuscates the pointer
+   using:
+   ...
+    void foo (void *ptr) {
+   +  asm ("" : "+r"(ptr));
+      gdb_assert (ptr != nullptr);
+    }
+   ...
+   but that still requires the developer to manually add this in all cases
+   where that's necessary.
+
+   A warning was added to detect the situation: -Wnonnull-compare, which does
+   help in detecting those cases, but each new gcc release may indicate a new
+   batch of locations that needs fixing, which means we've added a maintenance
+   burden.
+
+   We could try to deal with the problem more proactively by introducing a
+   gdb_assert variant like:
+   ...
+   void gdb_assert_non_null (void *ptr) {
+      asm ("" : "+r"(ptr));
+      gdb_assert (ptr != nullptr);
+    }
+    void foo (void *ptr) {
+      gdb_assert_nonnull (ptr);
+    }
+   ...
+   and make it a coding style to use it everywhere, but again, maintenance
+   burden.
+
+   With all these things considered, for now we go with the solution with the
+   least maintenance burden: disable the attribute, such that we reliably deal
+   with it everywhere.  */
+#undef ATTRIBUTE_NONNULL
+#define ATTRIBUTE_NONNULL(m)
+
 #if GCC_VERSION >= 3004
 #define ATTRIBUTE_UNUSED_RESULT __attribute__ ((__warn_unused_result__))
 #else