basic/stdio-util: introduce asprintf_safe

asprintf is nice to use, but the _documented_ error return convention is
unclear:
> If  memory  allocation  wasn't possible, or some other error occurs,
> these functions will return -1, and the contents of strp are undefined.

What exactly "undefined" means is up for debate: if it was really
undefined, the caller wouldn't be able to meaningfully clean up, because
they wouldn't know if strp is a valid pointer. So far we interpreted
"undefined" — in some parts of the code base — as "either NULL or a
valid pointer that needs to be freed", and — in other parts of the
codebase — as "always NULL". I checked glibc and musl, and they both
uncoditionally set the output pointer to NULL on failure.

There is also no information _why_ asprintf failed. It could be an
allocation error or format string error. But we just don't have this
information.

Let's add a wrapper that either returns a good string or a NULL pointer.
Since there's just one failure result, we don't need a separate return
value and an output argument and can simplify callers.
This commit is contained in:
Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek
2026-03-06 17:46:59 +01:00
parent d1278e1847
commit 52abc9fe96
4 changed files with 24 additions and 3 deletions
+3 -3
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@@ -754,9 +754,9 @@ SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later
section of the `alloca(3)` man page.
- If you want to concatenate two or more strings, consider using `strjoina()`
or `strjoin()` rather than `asprintf()`, as the latter is a lot slower. This
matters particularly in inner loops (but note that `strjoina()` cannot be
used there).
or `strjoin()` rather than `asprintf()` or `asprintf_safe`, as the latter is
a lot slower. This matters particularly in inner loops (but note that
`strjoina()` cannot be used there).
## Runtime Behaviour
+1
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@@ -99,6 +99,7 @@ basic_sources = files(
'sort-util.c',
'stat-util.c',
'static-destruct.c',
'stdio-util.c',
'strbuf.c',
'string-table.c',
'string-util.c',
+18
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@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
/* SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later */
#include "alloc-util.h"
#include "stdio-util.h"
char* asprintf_safe(const char *restrict fmt, ...) {
_cleanup_free_ char *buf = NULL;
va_list ap;
int r;
va_start(ap, fmt);
r = vasprintf(&buf, fmt, ap);
va_end(ap);
if (r < 0)
return NULL;
return TAKE_PTR(buf);
}
+2
View File
@@ -21,6 +21,8 @@ static inline char* snprintf_ok(char *buf, size_t len, const char *format, ...)
#define xsprintf(buf, fmt, ...) \
assert_message_se(snprintf_ok(buf, ELEMENTSOF(buf), fmt, ##__VA_ARGS__), "xsprintf: buffer too small")
char* asprintf_safe(const char *restrict fmt, ...) _printf_(1, 2);
#define VA_FORMAT_ADVANCE(format, ap) \
do { \
int _argtypes[128]; \