SLUB: return ZERO_SIZE_PTR for kmalloc(0)
Instead of returning the smallest available object return ZERO_SIZE_PTR.
A ZERO_SIZE_PTR can be legitimately used as an object pointer as long as it
is not deferenced. The dereference of ZERO_SIZE_PTR causes a distinctive
fault. kfree can handle a ZERO_SIZE_PTR in the same way as NULL.
This enables functions to use zero sized object. e.g. n = number of objects.
objects = kmalloc(n * sizeof(object));
for (i = 0; i < n; i++)
objects[i].x = y;
kfree(objects);
Signed-off-by: Christoph Lameter <clameter@sgi.com>
Acked-by: Pekka Enberg <penberg@cs.helsinki.fi>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2 files changed