gdb: building inferior strings from within GDB

History Of This Patch
=====================

This commit aims to address PR gdb/21699.  There have now been a
couple of attempts to fix this issue.  Simon originally posted two
patches back in 2021:

  https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2021-July/180894.html
  https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2021-July/180896.html

Before Pedro then posted a version of his own:

  https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2021-July/180970.html

After this the conversation halted.  Then in 2023 I (Andrew) also took
a look at this bug and posted two versions:

  https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2023-April/198570.html
  https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2023-April/198680.html

The approach taken in my first patch was pretty similar to what Simon
originally posted back in 2021.  My second attempt was only a slight
variation on the first.

Pedro then pointed out his older patch, and so we arrive at this
patch.  The GDB changes here are mostly Pedro's work, but updated by
me (Andrew), any mistakes are mine.

The tests here are a combinations of everyone's work, and the commit
message is new, but copies bits from everyone's earlier work.

Problem Description
===================

Bug PR gdb/21699 makes the observation that using $_as_string with
GDB's printf can cause GDB to print unexpected data from the
inferior.  The reproducer is pretty simple:

  #include <stddef.h>
  static char arena[100];

  /* Override malloc() so value_coerce_to_target() gets a known
     pointer, and we know we"ll see an error if $_as_string() gives
     a string that isn't null terminated. */
  void
  *malloc (size_t size)
  {
      memset (arena, 'x', sizeof (arena));
      if (size > sizeof (arena))
          return NULL;
      return arena;
  }

  int
  main ()
  {
    return 0;
  }

And then in a GDB session:

  $ gdb -q test
  Reading symbols from /tmp/test...
  (gdb) start
  Temporary breakpoint 1 at 0x4004c8: file test.c, line 17.
  Starting program: /tmp/test

  Temporary breakpoint 1, main () at test.c:17
  17        return 0;
  (gdb) printf "%s\n", $_as_string("hello")
  "hello"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  (gdb) quit

The problem above is caused by how value_cstring is used within
py-value.c, but once we understand the issue then it turns out that
value_cstring is used in an unexpected way in many places within GDB.

Within py-value.c we have a null-terminated C-style string.  We then
pass a pointer to this string, along with the length of this
string (so not including the null-character) to value_cstring.

In value_cstring GDB allocates an array value of the given character
type, and copies in requested number of characters.  However
value_cstring does not add a null-character of its own.  This means
that the value created by calling value_cstring is only
null-terminated if the null-character is included in the passed in
length.  In py-value.c this is not the case, and indeed, in most uses
of value_cstring, this is not the case.

When GDB tries to print one of these strings the value contents are
pushed to the inferior, and then read back as a C-style string, that
is, GDB reads inferior memory until it finds a null-terminator.  For
the py-value.c case, no null-terminator is pushed into the inferior,
so GDB will continue reading inferior memory until a null-terminator
is found, with unpredictable results.

Patch Description
=================

The first thing this patch does is better define what the arguments
for the two function value_cstring and value_string should represent.
The comments in the header file are updated to describe whether the
length argument should, or should not, include a null-character.
Also, the data argument is changed to type gdb_byte.  The functions as
they currently exist will handle wide-characters, in which case more
than one 'char' would be needed for each character.  As such using
gdb_byte seems to make more sense.

To avoid adding casts throughout GDB, I've also added an overload that
still takes a 'char *', but asserts that the character type being used
is of size '1'.

The value_cstring function is now responsible for adding a null
character at the end of the string value it creates.

However, once we start looking at how value_cstring is used, we
realise there's another, related, problem.  Not every language's
strings are null terminated.  Fortran and Ada strings, for example,
are just an array of characters, GDB already has the function
value_string which can be used to create such values.

Consider this example using current GDB:

  (gdb) set language ada
  (gdb) p $_gdb_setting("arch")
  $1 = (97, 117, 116, 111)
  (gdb) ptype $
  type = array (1 .. 4) of char
  (gdb) p $_gdb_maint_setting("test-settings string")
  $2 = (0)
  (gdb) ptype $
  type = array (1 .. 1) of char

This shows two problems, first, the $_gdb_setting and
$_gdb_maint_setting functions are calling value_cstring using the
builtin_char character, rather than a language appropriate type.  In
the first call, the 'arch' case, the value_cstring call doesn't
include the null character, so the returned array only contains the
expected characters.  But, in the $_gdb_maint_setting example we do
end up including the null-character, even though this is not expected
for Ada strings.

This commit adds a new language method language_defn::value_string,
this function takes a pointer and length and creates a language
appropriate value that represents the string.  For C, C++, etc this
will be a null-terminated string (by calling value_cstring), and for
Fortran and Ada this can be a bounded array of characters with no null
terminator.  Additionally, this new language_defn::value_string
function is responsible for selecting a language appropriate character
type.

After this commit the only calls to value_cstring are from the C
expression evaluator and from the default language_defn::value_string.

And the only calls to value_string are from Fortan, Ada, and ObjectC
related code.

Bug: https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=21699

Co-Authored-By: Simon Marchi <simon.marchi@efficios.com>
Co-Authored-By: Andrew Burgess <aburgess@redhat.com>
Co-Authored-By: Pedro Alves <pedro@palves.net>
Approved-By: Simon Marchi <simon.marchi@efficios.com>

1 files changed, 3 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/gdb/value.c b/gdb/value.c
index 980722a..9517868 100644
--- a/gdb/value.c
+++ b/gdb/value.c
@@ -2044,8 +2044,9 @@ value_of_internalvar (struct gdbarch *gdbarch, struct internalvar *var)
       break;
 
     case INTERNALVAR_STRING:
-      val = value_cstring (var->u.string, strlen (var->u.string),
-			   builtin_type (gdbarch)->builtin_char);
+      val = current_language->value_string (gdbarch,
+					    var->u.string,
+					    strlen (var->u.string));
       break;
 
     case INTERNALVAR_VALUE: