Re: When parameters to printf are in memory

From	Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: When parameters to printf are in memory
Date	2016-10-04 14:16 +0100
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<87pong1cgk.fsf@bsb.me.uk> (permalink)
References	(12 earlier) <nsvlm7$3r7$1@dont-email.me> <87fuoc33dx.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <nt013r$961$1@dont-email.me> <874m4s2smc.fsf@bsb.me.uk> <nt09b2$5vc$1@dont-email.me>

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BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

> On 04/10/2016 13:42, Ben Bacarisse wrote:
>> BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>
>>> The main problem would be with passing two arguments for "%d %d", then
>>> passing two ints like this means they are 8 bytes apart rather than
>>> 4. But it might be workable for a single argument at a time.
>>
>> Actually the main problem is simply that type is wrong.  I should
>> probably not have tried to come up with a specific example, because the
>> problem is more general than any one potential pitfall.  Once you you've
>> lied the compiler, you are its mercy.
>
> This is for a variadic argument, so the type cannot be wrong, as it's
> not specified! (Except inside the printf implementation, but then
> that's not a compiler issue.)

No, the type is specified by the format.  An argument of the wrong
(promoted) type gives undefined behaviour just a surely as passing the
wrong type to any other function.  Though the wording is rather strict,
the standard intends to offer a little leeway, I think, in that it
defines some groups of types as having the same size and representation
for the purposes being passed to variadic functions.

> Nonetheless there is another type-related problem with this: some
> machines pass the first few arguments in registers, but floating point
> arguments might use different registers. So on x64, a double might be
> passed in both rcx and xmm0 when it is for a variadic function, rather
> than just rcx.

That's one of the consequences of passing the wrong type.

> You might get around that by always pushing a double member of a union
> instead of uint64_t, but it starts looking more dodgy.
>
> Better here to find out what type is needed and pass the correct
> member of the union using conditional code. But that would still be
> limited to a single operand of printf per call.

That would work (I think I suggested it when I brought up the problem,
though I may have edited it away -- I certainly wrote-up that solution!)
but it's so messy (since you need the length specifier as well) that
it's really looking less and less like the right solution.

-- 
Ben.

Thread

When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 16:20 +0100
  Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 16:43 +0100
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-09-29 20:30 +0100
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 21:23 +0100
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-29 22:03 +0100
      Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 22:35 +0100
        Re: When parameters to printf are in memory BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-29 23:11 +0100
          Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-30 19:53 +0100
            Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-09-30 20:53 +0100
              Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-01 09:08 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-10-01 11:15 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-04 08:32 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-01 11:15 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-04 08:28 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-04 09:49 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-10-04 11:43 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-04 13:42 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-10-04 14:03 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-04 14:16 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-04 20:01 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-04 20:24 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-04 20:40 +0100
                Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2016-10-04 22:51 +0100
            Re: When parameters to printf are in memory "James R. Kuyper" <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2016-10-04 14:25 -0400
              Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-04 20:31 +0100
  Re: When parameters to printf are in memory BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2016-09-29 17:03 +0100
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2016-09-30 12:20 +0000
      Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-09-30 05:55 -0700
      Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-30 20:06 +0100
        Re: When parameters to printf are in memory gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2016-09-30 22:01 +0000
          Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-01 09:15 +0100
        Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2016-09-30 23:18 -0700
          Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-01 09:32 +0100
  Re: When parameters to printf are in memory jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-09-29 18:35 +0200
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 19:55 +0100
      Re: When parameters to printf are in memory jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-09-29 21:22 +0200
  Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@dqel.com> - 2016-09-29 11:20 -0700
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 20:08 +0100
  Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Lőrinczy Zsigmond <nospam@for.me> - 2016-10-02 20:15 +0200
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Lőrinczy Zsigmond <nospam@for.me> - 2016-10-02 20:19 +0200
      Re: When parameters to printf are in memory gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2016-10-02 18:29 +0000
        Re: When parameters to printf are in memory Lőrinczy Zsigmond <nospam@for.me> - 2016-10-03 07:04 +0200
          Re: When parameters to printf are in memory James Harris <james.harris.1@gmail.com> - 2016-10-04 08:36 +0100
    Re: When parameters to printf are in memory jacobnavia <jacob@jacob.remcomp.fr> - 2016-10-02 21:27 +0200

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