Buffer size checking for scanf* functions

[Yair Lenga <yair.lenga@gmail.com>]

Hi,

Looking for feedback on the following age-old scanf problem: I'm trying to
perform a "safe' scanf, which will avoid buffer overflow.

#define XSIZE 30
char x[XSIZE] ;
sscanf(input, "%29s", x) ;

With the common pitfall that anytime the size of X is changed, the format
string MUST to be modified. One common approach, with glibc, is to use the
'm' modifier, switch x to char **x. However, this require code changes, and
is not practical with my existing code base.

My question: is there any extension to allow scanf to take an extra
argument (similar to the scanf_s proposal) - specifying the sizeof any
string arguments ?
sscanf(input, "%S", x, sizeof(x)) ;     // The 'S' require adding sizeof
parameter ?

If there is no such extension - how hard it will be to implement. I know
possible to define custom conversions for printf, I could not find anything
for scanf. IF this will be built into 'glibc', there IF it will be embedded
into the gcc format checks (2 big IFs), it can reduce the problems I (and I
believe many other developers) face when using those functions.

Yair