qapi: Change visit_type_FOO() to no longer return partial objects

Returning a partial object on error is an invitation for a careless
caller to leak memory.  We already fixed things in an earlier
patch to guarantee NULL if visit_start fails ("qapi: Guarantee
NULL obj on input visitor callback error"), but that does not
help the case where visit_start succeeds but some other failure
happens before visit_end, such that we leak a partially constructed
object outside visit_type_FOO(). As no one outside the testsuite
was actually relying on these semantics, it is cleaner to just
document and guarantee that ALL pointer-based visit_type_FOO()
functions always leave a safe value in *obj during an input visitor
(either the new object on success, or NULL if an error is
encountered), so callers can now unconditionally use
qapi_free_FOO() to clean up regardless of whether an error occurred.

The decision is done by adding visit_is_input(), then updating the
generated code to check if additional cleanup is needed based on
the type of visitor in use.

Note that we still leave *obj unchanged after a scalar-based
visit_type_FOO(); I did not feel like auditing all uses of
visit_type_Enum() to see if the callers would tolerate a specific
sentinel value (not to mention having to decide whether it would
be better to use 0 or ENUM__MAX as that sentinel).

Signed-off-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
Message-Id: <1461879932-9020-25-git-send-email-eblake@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>

1 files changed, 16 insertions, 9 deletions

diff --git a/include/qapi/visitor.h b/include/qapi/visitor.h
index 8de6b43..4d12167 100644
--- a/include/qapi/visitor.h
+++ b/include/qapi/visitor.h
@@ -66,12 +66,14 @@
  * member @name is not present, or is present but not the specified
  * type).
  *
- * FIXME: At present, visit_type_FOO() is an awkward interface: input
- * visitors may allocate an incomplete *@obj even when reporting an
- * error, but using an output visitor with an incomplete object has
- * undefined behavior.  To avoid a memory leak, callers must use
- * qapi_free_FOO() even on error (this uses the dealloc visitor, and
- * safely handles an incomplete object).
+ * If an error is detected during visit_type_FOO() with an input
+ * visitor, then *@obj will be NULL for pointer types, and left
+ * unchanged for scalar types.  Using an output visitor with an
+ * incomplete object has undefined behavior (other than a special case
+ * for visit_type_str() treating NULL like ""), while the dealloc
+ * visitor safely handles incomplete objects.  Since input visitors
+ * never produce an incomplete object, such an object is possible only
+ * by manual construction.
  *
  * For the QAPI object types (structs, unions, and alternates), there
  * is an additional generated function in qapi-visit.h compatible
@@ -106,7 +108,6 @@
  *  v = ...obtain input visitor...
  *  visit_type_Foo(v, NULL, &f, &err);
  *  if (err) {
- *      qapi_free_Foo(f);
  *      ...handle error...
  *  } else {
  *      ...use f...
@@ -124,7 +125,6 @@
  *  v = ...obtain input visitor...
  *  visit_type_FooList(v, NULL, &l, &err);
  *  if (err) {
- *      qapi_free_FooList(l);
  *      ...handle error...
  *  } else {
  *      for ( ; l; l = l->next) {
@@ -154,7 +154,9 @@
  * helpers that rely on in-tree information to control the walk:
  * visit_optional() for the 'has_member' field associated with
  * optional 'member' in the C struct; and visit_next_list() for
- * advancing through a FooList linked list.  Only the generated
+ * advancing through a FooList linked list.  Similarly, the
+ * visit_is_input() helper makes it possible to write code that is
+ * visitor-agnostic everywhere except for cleanup.  Only the generated
  * visit_type functions need to use these helpers.
  *
  * It is also possible to use the visitors to do a virtual walk, where
@@ -405,6 +407,11 @@ bool visit_optional(Visitor *v, const char *name, bool *present);
 void visit_type_enum(Visitor *v, const char *name, int *obj,
                      const char *const strings[], Error **errp);
 
+/*
+ * Check if visitor is an input visitor.
+ */
+bool visit_is_input(Visitor *v);
+
 /*** Visiting built-in types ***/
 
 /*