bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>

bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>

[Wilco Dijkstra]

Hi,

> I really won't bother with this interface, since potentially changing it
> might generate more potentially breakage than improvements.

The typical use-case is rounding up a pointer to align it or increasing a buffer
to be allocated. There is no chance of overflow in these cases since you will
never have pointers that close to SIZE_MAX or get buffers close to the maximum
memory size. And adding saturation would mean we didn't do what was requested
either...

So it seems best to state it only works on unsigned values (with y > 0 since division
by zero is undefined behaviour of course) and it's implementation defined whether
overflow wraps or saturates.

Cheers,
Wilco

Re: bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Wilco and Adhemerval!

On 1/17/23 20:16, Wilco Dijkstra wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>> I really won't bother with this interface, since potentially changing it
>> might generate more potentially breakage than improvements.
> 
> The typical use-case is rounding up a pointer to align it or increasing a buffer
> to be allocated. There is no chance of overflow in these cases since you will
> never have pointers that close to SIZE_MAX or get buffers close to the maximum
> memory size. And adding saturation would mean we didn't do what was requested
> either...
> 
> So it seems best to state it only works on unsigned values (with y > 0 since division
> by zero is undefined behaviour of course) and it's implementation defined whether
> overflow wraps or saturates.
> 

Thanks! That clarifies what this macro is for.  I'll document that.

Cheers,

Alex

> Cheers,
> Wilco

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>

[Paul Eggert]

On 1/17/23 11:16, Wilco Dijkstra via Libc-alpha wrote:
> So it seems best to state it only works on unsigned values (with y > 0 since division
> by zero is undefined behaviour of course) and it's implementation defined whether
> overflow wraps or saturates.

roundup works just fine on signed integers. Although x should be 
nonnegative and y should be positive, there's no requirement that either 
x or y must be unsigned.

This sort of thing matters in the C style I prefer nowadays, which is to 
use types like ptrdiff_t and idx_t instead of size_t, so that I can 
optionally enable runtime overflow checking that works.

Re: bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Paul!

On 1/17/23 21:11, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 1/17/23 11:16, Wilco Dijkstra via Libc-alpha wrote:
>> So it seems best to state it only works on unsigned values (with y > 0 since 
>> division
>> by zero is undefined behaviour of course) and it's implementation defined whether
>> overflow wraps or saturates.
> 
> roundup works just fine on signed integers. Although x should be nonnegative and 
> y should be positive, there's no requirement that either x or y must be unsigned.
> 
> This sort of thing matters in the C style I prefer nowadays, which is to use 
> types like ptrdiff_t and idx_t instead of size_t, so that I can optionally 
> enable runtime overflow checking that works.

That's fair; I'll clarify, and anyway, will post the manual page for review 
before pushing.

If you happen to know od any other use cases for this function, it might be 
interesting.

Cheers,

Alex

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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[RFC] roundup.3: New page documenting roundup(3) (was: bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>)

[Alejandro Colomar]

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roundup(3)                 Library Functions Manual                 roundup(3)

NAME
        roundup - round up in steps

LIBRARY
        Standard C library (libc)

SYNOPSIS
        #include <sys/param.h>

        roundup(x, step);

DESCRIPTION
        This  macro  rounds  x to the nearest multiple of step that is not less
        than x.

        This macro is typically used for rounding up a pointer to align  it  or
        increasing a buffer to be allocated.

        This  API is not designed to be generic, and doesn’t work in some cases
        that are not important for the typical use cases described above.   See
        CAVEATS.

RETURN VALUE
        This macro returns the rounded value.

STANDARDS
        This nonstandard macro is present in glibc and some BSDs.

CAVEATS
        The arguments may be evaluated more than once.

        x should be nonnegative, and step should be positive.

        This  macro  produces  incorrect values when x + step would overflow or
        wrap around

SEE ALSO
        ceil(3), floor(3), lrint(3), rint(3), lround(3), round(3)

Linux man‐pages (unreleased)        (date)                          roundup(3)

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Re: [RFC] roundup.3: New page documenting roundup(3) (was: bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>)

[Paul Eggert]

On 1/17/23 12:24, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> 
>         This  macro  produces  incorrect values when x + step would 
> overflow or
>         wrap around

The macro can have undefined behavior on overflow, if the result type is 
signed. So I suggest replacing "produces incorrect values" with "has 
undefined behavior".

I suppose you could also document that the behavior is well-defined if 
the result type is unsigned, but that sounds like overkill.

Re: [RFC] roundup.3: New page documenting roundup(3) (was: bug in roundup(3) from <sys/param.h>)

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Paul,

On 1/17/23 22:53, Paul Eggert wrote:
> On 1/17/23 12:24, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
>>
>>         This  macro  produces  incorrect values when x + step would overflow or
>>         wrap around
> 
> The macro can have undefined behavior on overflow, if the result type is signed. 
> So I suggest replacing "produces incorrect values" with "has undefined behavior".
> 
> I suppose you could also document that the behavior is well-defined if the 
> result type is unsigned, but that sounds like overkill.

Indeed.  v2 below.

Cheers,

Alex

---

roundup(3)                 Library Functions Manual                 roundup(3)

NAME
        roundup - round up in steps

LIBRARY
        Standard C library (libc)

SYNOPSIS
        #include <sys/param.h>

        roundup(x, step);

DESCRIPTION
        This  macro  rounds  x to the nearest multiple of step that is not less
        than x.

        It is typically used for rounding up a pointer to align it or  increas‐
        ing a buffer to be allocated.

        This  API is not designed to be generic, and doesn’t work in some cases
        that are not important for the typical use cases described above.   See
        CAVEATS.

RETURN VALUE
        This macro returns the rounded value.

STANDARDS
        This nonstandard macro is present in glibc and some BSDs.

CAVEATS
        The arguments may be evaluated more than once.

        x should be nonnegative, and step should be positive.

        If x + step would overflow or wrap around, the behavior is undefined.

SEE ALSO
        ceil(3), floor(3), lrint(3), rint(3), lround(3), round(3)

Linux man‐pages (unreleased)        (date)                          roundup(3)

-- 
<http://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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