C99 compound literal passed to function parameter and returned by the same function-CodePudding

I want to convert a uuid to hex string in C99 and pass it to a log function which uses printf format under the hood. I want to avoid the separate allocation of local variable because if the log is disabled then the preprocessor removes the function call and the variable becomes unused so a warning is emitted.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

typedef struct {
  uint8_t data[8];
} uuid_64_t;

#define UID_64_STR_MAX_SIZE 24

#define UUID_64_TO_STRING(uuid_64, separator, uppercase)      \
  uuid_64_to_string((char[UID_64_STR_MAX_SIZE]){ 0 },         \
                    sizeof((char[UID_64_STR_MAX_SIZE]){ 0 }), \
                    uuid_64,                                  \
                    separator,                                \
                    uppercase)

const char *bytes_to_hex(char *buffer,
                         uint32_t buffer_size,
                         const uint8_t *bytes,
                         uint32_t bytes_size,
                         char separator,
                         bool uppercase)
{
  const char hex_char_uppercase[] = { '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7',
                                      '8', '9', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F' };
  const char hex_char_lowercase[] = { '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7',
                                      '8', '9', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f' };

  const char *hex_char = uppercase ? hex_char_uppercase : hex_char_lowercase;
  uint32_t total_size, total_separator_size;

  // If the separator is set the null character then no separator is used so
  // the multiplication by zero results in zero total separator size.
  // There is a separator after each two hex characters except for the last two.
  total_separator_size = (bytes_size - 1) * (separator != '\0');

  // One character shall be reserved for the terminating null character
  total_size = 2 * bytes_size   total_separator_size   1;

  if ((buffer == NULL) || (bytes == NULL) || (buffer_size < total_size)) {
    return "INVALID";
  }

  uint32_t out_idx = 0;
  for (uint32_t in_idx = 0; in_idx < bytes_size; in_idx  ) {
    buffer[out_idx  ] = hex_char[(bytes[in_idx] >> 4) & 0xF];
    buffer[out_idx  ] = hex_char[(bytes[in_idx] >> 0) & 0xF];
    if (separator != '\0' && (in_idx   1) < bytes_size) {
      buffer[out_idx  ] = separator;
    }
  }

  buffer[out_idx] = '\0';
  return buffer;
}

const char *uuid_64_to_string(char *buffer,
                              uint32_t buffer_size,
                              const uuid_64_t *uuid_64,
                              char separator,
                              bool uppercase)
{
  return bytes_to_hex(buffer,
                      buffer_size,
                      uuid_64->data,
                      sizeof(uuid_64->data),
                      separator,
                      uppercase);
}
 
int main(void)
{
    printf("uuid=%s\r\n", UUID_64_TO_STRING(&uuid_64, ':', true));
}

The idea is to call a function through a macro which passes a compound literal as the buffer parameter. The compound literal allocates a local variable where the uuid_64_to_string function writes the hex characters through bytes_to_hex function. The uuid_64_to_string returns this passed compound literal in order to use it directly in a printf-like log call. The only problem can be the lifetime of the compound literal and I am a little be unsure about this. According to C99 standard:

The value of the compound literal is that of an unnamed object initialized by the initializer list. If the compound literal occurs outside the body of a function, the object has static storage duration; otherwise, it has automatic storage duration associated with the enclosing block

So as I interpret the standard this should be well-defined behavior because the printf call and uuid_64_to_string call are in the same block. What is you opinion?

CodePudding user response：

The macro UUID_64_TO_STRING expands to a function call to uuid_64_to_string passing a pointer to a compound literal (char[UID_64_STR_MAX_SIZE]){ 0 } whose scope is the enclosing block in the main() function.

The function uuid_64_to_string returns its first argument, hence the pointer to the local array. It is OK to pass that to printf as an argument because the object it points to is a C string and has a lifetime that covers the execution of the printf call.

Conversely, it would be a mistake to return this pointer to the calling function or to store it into a pointer used outside the current scope:

int main() {
    printf("uuid=%s\r\n", UUID_64_TO_STRING(&uuid_64, ':', true)); // OK
    return 0;
}

This use is invalid:

char *hexify(uuid_64_t *id) {
    return UUID_64_TO_STRING(id, ':', true); // NOT OK
}

int main() {
    printf("uuid=%s\r\n", hexify(&uuid_64)); // NOT OK
    return 0;
}

Note that the scoping issue may be subtle:

int main() {
    const char *p = "invalid id";
    if (isValidID(uuid_64))
        p = UUID_64_TO_STRING(&uuid_64, ':', true);

    printf("uuid=%s\r\n", p); // OK
    return 0;
}

int main() {
    const char *p = "invalid id";
    if (isValidID(uuid_64)) {
        p = UUID_64_TO_STRING(&uuid_64, ':', true);
    }
    printf("uuid=%s\r\n", p); // NOT OK
    return 0;
}

While this macro seems useful, it should be used with care, probably only as a function argument.