avr-libc realloc ‘fix’

February 11th, 2009 Comments Off on avr-libc realloc ‘fix’

I’ve been working on patterns for Arduino, which relies on a dynamic array for managing event loops, observables, and device abstraction. However, I was blocked by a critical failure in realloc. While I could have worked around it using malloc/free, but wanted to understand what was going on in libc.

One thing that struck me about realloc was the naming conventions; What was the difference between fp1, fp2, cp1, cp2? Some referred to a free block, some referred to a free pointer. I gave up and renamed the variables to something more readable.

The fatal flaw has to do with mixing sizeof(__freelist) and sizeof(size_t). In many cases, the difference results in indexing into the middle of a free list entry, thus corrupting memory.

(compare to avr-libc/libc/stdlib/realloc.c)

void* realloc(void *ptr, size_t newLength)
{
    struct __freelist *currentBlock, *nextBlock, 
        *currentFreeBlock, *previousFreeBlock;
    char *currentPointer, *nextPointer;
    void *memp;
    size_t largestBlockSize, sizeIncrease;
    
    /* Trivial case, required by C standard. */
    if (ptr == 0)
        return Malloc(newLength);
    
    currentPointer = (char *)ptr;
    currentBlock = (struct __freelist *)
         (currentPointer - sizeof(size_t));
    
    nextPointer = (char *)ptr + newLength; /* new next pointer */
    if (nextPointer < currentPointer)
    {
        /* Pointer wrapped across top of RAM, fail. */
        return 0;
    }
    
    nextBlock = (struct __freelist *)(nextPointer - sizeof(size_t));
    
    /*
     * See whether we are growing or shrinking.  When shrinking,
     * we split off a chunk for the released portion, and call
     * free() on it.  Therefore, we can only shrink if the new
     * size is at least sizeof(struct __freelist) smaller than the
     * previous size.
     */
    if (newLength <= currentBlock->sz) 
    {
        /* The first test catches a possible unsigned int
         * rollover condition. */
        if (currentBlock->sz <= sizeof(struct __freelist) ||
            newLength > currentBlock->sz - sizeof(struct __freelist))
        {
            return ptr;
        }
        
        nextBlock->sz = currentBlock->sz - newLength - sizeof(size_t);
        currentBlock->sz = newLength;
        Free(&(nextBlock->nx));
        return ptr;
    }
    
    /*
     * If we get here, we are growing.  First, see whether there
     * is space in the free list on top of our current chunk.
     */
    sizeIncrease = newLength - currentBlock->sz;
    currentPointer = (char *)ptr + currentBlock->sz;
    for (largestBlockSize = 0, previousFreeBlock = 0, 
         currentFreeBlock = __flp; currentFreeBlock; 
         previousFreeBlock = currentFreeBlock, 
             currentFreeBlock = currentFreeBlock->nx) 
    {
        if (currentFreeBlock == nextBlock && 
            currentFreeBlock->sz >= sizeIncrease) 
        {
            /* found something that fits */
            if (sizeIncrease <= currentFreeBlock->sz + sizeof(size_t))
            {
                /* it just fits, so use it entirely */
                currentBlock->sz += 
                    currentFreeBlock->sz + sizeof(size_t);
                if (previousFreeBlock)
                    previousFreeBlock->nx = currentFreeBlock->nx;
                else
                    __flp = currentFreeBlock->nx;
                return ptr;
            }
            
            /* split off a new freelist entry */
            currentPointer = (char *)ptr + newLength;
            nextBlock = (struct __freelist *)
                (currentPointer - sizeof(size_t));
            nextBlock->nx = currentFreeBlock->nx;
            nextBlock->sz = currentFreeBlock->sz -
                 sizeIncrease - sizeof(size_t);
            
            if (previousFreeBlock)
                previousFreeBlock->nx = nextBlock;
            else
                __flp = nextBlock;
            currentBlock->sz = newLength;
            return ptr;
        }
        
        /*
         * Find the largest chunk on the freelist while
         * walking it.
         */
        if (currentFreeBlock->sz > largestBlockSize)
        {
            largestBlockSize = currentFreeBlock->sz;
        }
    }
    /*
     * If we are the topmost chunk in memory, and there was no
     * large enough chunk on the freelist that could be re-used
     * (by a call to malloc() below), quickly extend the
     * allocation area if possible, without need to copy the old
     * data.
     */
    if (__brkval == (char *)ptr + currentBlock->sz && newLength > largestBlockSize) 
    {
        nextPointer = __malloc_heap_end;
        currentPointer = (char *)ptr + newLength;
        if (nextPointer == 0)
        {
            nextPointer = STACK_POINTER() - __malloc_margin;
        }
        
        if (currentPointer < nextPointer) 
        {
            __brkval = currentPointer;
            currentBlock->sz = newLength;
            return ptr;
        }
        
        /* If that failed, we are out of luck. */
        return 0;
    }
    
    /*
     * Call malloc() for a new chunk, then copy over the data, and
     * release the old region.
     */
    if ((memp = Malloc(newLength)) == 0)
        return 0;
    memcpy(memp, ptr, currentBlock->sz);
    Free(ptr);
    return memp;
}

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