commit 39640728c332980daf7ca639827735a1c359669a
Author: Nick Mathewson <nickm(a)torproject.org>
Date: Tue Oct 1 09:42:10 2019 -0400
Add comments to try to prevent recurrence of #31495.
There is a bad design choice in two of our configuration types,
where the empty string encodes a value that is not the same as the
default value. This design choice, plus an implementation mistake,
meant that config_dup() did not preserve the value of routerset_t,
and thereby caused bug #31495.
This comment-only patch documents the two types with the problem,
and suggests that implementors try to avoid it in the future.
Closes ticket 31907.
---
src/feature/nodelist/routerset.c | 7 +++++++
src/lib/confmgt/type_defs.c | 4 ++++
src/lib/confmgt/var_type_def_st.h | 6 ++++++
3 files changed, 17 insertions(+)
diff --git a/src/feature/nodelist/routerset.c b/src/feature/nodelist/routerset.c
index 73c2b1b1d..9a205d39b 100644
--- a/src/feature/nodelist/routerset.c
+++ b/src/feature/nodelist/routerset.c
@@ -473,6 +473,13 @@ routerset_free_(routerset_t *routerset)
* routerset_t** passed as <b>target</b>. On success return 0; on failure
* return -1 and store an error message into *<b>errmsg</b>.
**/
+/*
+ * Warning: For this type, the default value (NULL) and "" are sometimes
+ * considered different values. That is generally risky, and best avoided for
+ * other types in the future. For cases where we want the default to be "all
+ * routers" (like EntryNodes) we should add a new routerset value indicating
+ * "all routers" (see #31908)
+ */
static int
routerset_kv_parse(void *target, const config_line_t *line, char **errmsg,
const void *params)
diff --git a/src/lib/confmgt/type_defs.c b/src/lib/confmgt/type_defs.c
index 62c12fcdd..ed930fb02 100644
--- a/src/lib/confmgt/type_defs.c
+++ b/src/lib/confmgt/type_defs.c
@@ -44,6 +44,10 @@
// CONFIG_TYPE_FILENAME
//
// These two types are the same for now, but they have different names.
+//
+// Warning: For this type, the default value (NULL) and "" are considered
+// different values. That is generally risky, and best avoided for other
+// types in the future.
//////
static int
diff --git a/src/lib/confmgt/var_type_def_st.h b/src/lib/confmgt/var_type_def_st.h
index f1131ff11..2bf3d37ca 100644
--- a/src/lib/confmgt/var_type_def_st.h
+++ b/src/lib/confmgt/var_type_def_st.h
@@ -39,6 +39,12 @@ struct config_line_t;
* All functions here take a <b>params</b> argument, whose value
* is determined by the type definition. Two types may have the
* same functions, but differ only in parameters.
+ *
+ * Implementation considerations: If "" encodes a valid value for a type, try
+ * to make sure that it encodes the same thing as the default value for the
+ * type (that is, the value that is set by config_clear() or memset(0)). If
+ * this is not the case, you need to make extra certain that your parse/encode
+ * implementations preserve the NULL/"" distinction.
**/
struct var_type_fns_t {
/**