Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior?

From	Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com>
Newsgroups	comp.std.c
Subject	Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior?
Date	2023-08-17 07:08 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<20230816235712.844@kylheku.com> (permalink)
References	(5 earlier) <86a5uv95g7.fsf@linuxsc.com> <fcb2be8f-b346-421f-9804-5f94c93266b0n@googlegroups.com> <864jkz7hrm.fsf@linuxsc.com> <e043af84-3153-4097-9505-666869fcf727n@googlegroups.com> <867cpu5h8w.fsf@linuxsc.com>

Show all headers | View raw

On 2023-08-17, Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> wrote:
> Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> writes:
>
> [some unrelated passages removed]
>
>> On Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 6:06:43?AM UTC+2, Tim Rentsch wrote:
>>
>>> Martin Uecker <ma.u...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> [...]
>
>>>> One could still consider the idea that "indeterminate" is an
>>>> abstract property that yields UB during read even for types
>>>> that do not have trap representations.  There is no wording
>>>> in the C standard to support this, but I would not call this
>>>> idea "fundamentally wrong".  You are right that this is different
>>>> to provenance provenance which is about values.  What it would
>>>> have in common with pointer provenance is that there is hidden
>>>> state in the abstract machine associated with memory that
>>>> is not part of the representation.  With effective types there
>>>> is another example of this.
>>>
>>> I understand that you want to consider a broader topic, and that,
>>> in the realm of that broader topic, something like provenance
>>> could have a role to play.  I think it is worth responding to
>>> that thesis, and am expecting to do so in a separate reply (or
>>> new thread?) although probably not right away.
>>
>> I would love to hear your comments, because some people
>> want to have such an abstract of "indeterminate" and
>> some already believe that this is how the standard should
>> be understood already today.
>
> I've been thinking about this, and am close (I think) to having
> something to say in response.  Before I do that, thought, let me
> ask this:  what problem or problems are motivating the question?
> What problems do you (or "some people") want to solve?  I don't
> want just examples here;  I'm hoping to get a full list.

I'm all about the diagnosis. Even on machines in which all
representations are values, and therefore safe, a program whose external
effect or output depends on unintialized data, and is therefore
nondeterministic (a bad form of nondeterministic), is a repugnant
program.

I'd like to have clear rules which allow an implementation to
to go great depths to diagnose all such situations, while
remaining conforming. (The language agrees that those situations
are erroneous, granting the tools license to diagnose.)

At the same time, certain situations in which uninitialized data are
used in ways that don't have a visible effect, would be nuisance if they
generated diagnostics, the primary example being the copying of objects.
I would like it so that memcpy isn't magic. I want it so that the
programmer can write a bytewise memcpy which doesn't violate the
rules even if it moves uninitialized data.

I would like a model of uninitialized data which usefully lends itself
to different depths with different trade-offs, like complexity of
analysis and use of run-time resources. Limits should be imposed by
implementations (what cases they want to diagnose) rather than by the
model.

-- 
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca

Back to comp.std.c | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2023-07-20 22:16 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2023-07-21 16:33 +0100
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2023-07-21 11:56 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2023-07-21 20:54 +0100
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2023-07-21 14:26 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2023-07-21 23:39 +0100
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-12 17:00 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-08-13 23:41 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-15 21:06 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-08-15 22:40 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-16 23:13 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-08-17 07:08 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-08-18 12:44 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-08-19 05:04 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-08-19 01:36 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Richard Damon <Richard@Damon-Family.org> - 2023-08-19 09:18 -0400
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-08-19 11:12 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-18 20:20 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-08-19 05:23 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-18 22:56 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-08-18 12:52 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-26 19:25 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> - 2023-08-27 08:31 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-29 04:35 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> - 2023-08-30 19:53 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-30 17:40 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> - 2023-08-31 18:18 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-09-05 05:39 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-09-05 17:03 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Jakob Bohm <jb-usenet@wisemo.com.invalid> - 2023-09-07 17:09 +0200
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2023-09-07 17:19 +0100
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Jakob Bohm <jb-usenet@wisemo.com.invalid> - 2023-09-08 23:12 +0200
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2023-09-08 22:31 +0100
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-07-22 06:40 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-07-22 06:03 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-07-25 21:53 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-16 11:11 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-07-21 17:42 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Jakob Bohm <jb-usenet@wisemo.com.invalid> - 2023-07-24 07:53 +0200
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-07-25 21:57 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-03 13:13 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2023-08-03 15:20 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Martin Uecker <ma.uecker@gmail.com> - 2023-08-05 01:15 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2023-08-16 09:19 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-08-16 19:51 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-08-16 20:03 +0000
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2023-08-16 13:43 -0700
Re: Does reading an uninitialized object have undefined behavior? Kaz Kylheku <864-117-4973@kylheku.com> - 2023-08-16 21:08 +0000

csiph-web