In message <6253-45895@...>
mfy9ls402@... wrote:
> When calling "times(NULL)", valgrind (2.4.22) reports:
There is no valgrind 2.4.22... I assume that is actually the
version of your kernel?
> ==798== Syscall param times(buf) points to unaddressable byte(s)
> ==798== at 0x1BB5439D: times (in /lib/libc-2.3.2.so)
> ...
> ==798== Address 0x0 is not stack'd, malloc'd or (recently) free'd
>
> I'm using times under linux, and it appears to be valid to pass it
> NULL, if you are only interested in the return code (the clock ticks
> since boot), not the updates stored in the parameter. However, on
> other unix OS's (Solaris, for example), I understand this is unsafe --
> you need to always pass in a pointer to a dummy "struct tms", even if
> you never set it or look at the contents.
You would appear to be correct - the linux manual page doesn't
actually mention allowing null but it doesn't list EFAULT as an
error either which Solaris does.
> I could just change our call to times to pass in a dummy struct, but
> I'm not sure that's really the right thing to do. I suspect that if
> you pass in NULL, times will optimize out collecting all the unneeded
> information. Should valgrind really complain about this?
The kernel does indeed optimise by skipping about two dozen lines
of code and just doing the last line ;-)
Please raise a bug for this on the bug tracker.
Tom
--
Tom Hughes (tom@...)
http://www.compton.nu/
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