Re: memory-related bugs

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2011-03-12T17:44:29Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com> writes:
> A suitably-instrumented run of "make installcheck-world" under valgrind turned
> up a handful of memory-related bugs:

Hmm, interesting work, but I don't think I believe in the necessity for
this kluge:

> + 	else if (attributeName != &(att->attname))
> + 		namestrcpy(&(att->attname), attributeName);

The rules against overlapping memcpy/strcpy's source and destination are
meant to cover the case of partial overlap; I find it hard to imagine an
implementation that will mess up when the source and destination are
identical.  If we did think it was important to avoid this situation I
would rather find another way, like modifying the caller.  Likewise
the other changes to avoid no-op memcpy's do not appear to me to be
bugs, though possibly they might save enough cycles to be worth doing
anyway.

> ! 	stats->attrtype = (Form_pg_type) palloc(sizeof(FormData_pg_type));
> ! 	memcpy(stats->attrtype, GETSTRUCT(typtuple), sizeof(FormData_pg_type));
> ...
> ! 	stats->attrtype = (Form_pg_type) palloc(TYPE_FIXED_PART_SIZE);
> ! 	memcpy(stats->attrtype, GETSTRUCT(typtuple), TYPE_FIXED_PART_SIZE);

I wonder whether we should instead fix this by copying the correct tuple
length.

			regards, tom lane