On Thu Jan 23, 2020 at 4:49 PM, John Fastabend wrote: [...] > > * function eBPF program intends to call > > diff --git a/kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c b/kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c > > index 19e793aa441a..24c51272a1f7 100644 > > --- a/kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c > > +++ b/kernel/trace/bpf_trace.c > > @@ -1028,6 +1028,35 @@ static const struct bpf_func_proto bpf_perf_prog_read_value_proto = { > > .arg3_type = ARG_CONST_SIZE, > > }; > > > > +BPF_CALL_3(bpf_perf_prog_read_branches, struct bpf_perf_event_data_kern *, ctx, > > + void *, buf, u32, size) > > +{ > > + struct perf_branch_stack *br_stack = ctx->data->br_stack; > > + u32 to_copy = 0, to_clear = size; > > + int err = -EINVAL; > > + > > + if (unlikely(!br_stack)) > > + goto clear; > > + > > + to_copy = min_t(u32, br_stack->nr * sizeof(struct perf_branch_entry), size); > > + to_clear -= to_copy; > > + > > + memcpy(buf, br_stack->entries, to_copy); > > + err = to_copy; > > +clear: > > > There appears to be agreement to clear the extra buffer on error but > what about > in the non-error case? I expect one usage pattern is to submit a fairly > large > buffer, large enough to handle worse case nr, in this case we end up > zero'ing > memory even in the succesful case. Can we skip the clear in this case? > Maybe > its not too important either way but seems unnecessary. > > > > + memset(buf + to_copy, 0, to_clear); > > + return err; > > +} > Given Yonghong's suggestion of a flag argument, we need to allow users to pass in a null ptr while getting buffer size. So I'll change the `buf` argument to be ARG_PTR_TO_MEM_OR_NULL, which requires the buffer be initialized. We can skip zero'ing out altogether. Although I think the end result is the same -- now the user has to zero it out. Unfortunately ARG_PTR_TO_UNINITIALIZED_MEM_OR_NULL is not implemented yet.