Ancient bug in formatting.c/to_char()
Consider this example:
[local]/postgres=# SELECT to_char(1e9::float8,'999999999999999999999D9');
to_char
--------------------------
1000000000.0
(1 row)
[local]/postgres=# SELECT to_char(1e20::float8,'999999999999999999999D9');
to_char
------------------------
100000000000000000000
(1 row)
[local]/postgres=# SELECT to_char(1e20,'999999999999999999999D9');
to_char
--------------------------
100000000000000000000.0
(1 row)
There is access to uninitialized memory here. #define
DEBUG_TO_FROM_CHAR shows this to be the case (garbage is printed to
stdout).
Valgrind brought this to my attention. I propose the attached patch as
a fix for this issue.
The direct cause appears to be that float8_to_char() feels entitled to
truncate Number description post-digits, while that doesn't happen
within numeric_to_char(), say. This is very old code, from the
original to_char() patch back in 2000, and the interactions here are
not obvious. I think that that should be okay to not do this
truncation, since the value of MAXDOUBLEWIDTH was greatly increased in
2007 as part of a round of fixes to bugs of similar vintage. There is
still a defensive measure against over-sized input (we bail), but that
ought to be unnecessary, strictly speaking.
--
Peter Geoghegan
Attachments:
float8_to_char_fix.patchtext/x-patch; charset=US-ASCII; name=float8_to_char_fix.patchDownload+17-16
On 05/29/2014 04:59 AM, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
Consider this example:
[local]/postgres=# SELECT to_char(1e9::float8,'999999999999999999999D9');
to_char
--------------------------
1000000000.0
(1 row)[local]/postgres=# SELECT to_char(1e20::float8,'999999999999999999999D9');
to_char
------------------------
100000000000000000000
(1 row)[local]/postgres=# SELECT to_char(1e20,'999999999999999999999D9');
to_char
--------------------------
100000000000000000000.0
(1 row)There is access to uninitialized memory here. #define
DEBUG_TO_FROM_CHAR shows this to be the case (garbage is printed to
stdout).Valgrind brought this to my attention. I propose the attached patch as
a fix for this issue.The direct cause appears to be that float8_to_char() feels entitled to
truncate Number description post-digits, while that doesn't happen
within numeric_to_char(), say. This is very old code, from the
original to_char() patch back in 2000, and the interactions here are
not obvious. I think that that should be okay to not do this
truncation, since the value of MAXDOUBLEWIDTH was greatly increased in
2007 as part of a round of fixes to bugs of similar vintage. There is
still a defensive measure against over-sized input (we bail), but that
ought to be unnecessary, strictly speaking.
postgres=# select to_char('0.1'::float8, '9D' || repeat('9', 1000));
ERROR: double precision for character conversion is too wide
Yeah, the code is pretty crufty, I'm not sure what the proper fix would
be. I wonder if psprintf would be useful.
- Heikki
--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
On Thu, May 29, 2014 at 3:09 AM, Heikki Linnakangas
<hlinnakangas@vmware.com> wrote:
Yeah, the code is pretty crufty, I'm not sure what the proper fix would be.
I wonder if psprintf would be useful.
I don't know that it's worth worrying about the case you highlight. It
is certainly worth worrying about the lack of a similar fix in
float4_to_char(), though.
--
Peter Geoghegan
--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers
Where are we on this?
--
Peter Geoghegan
--
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers