[Rd] GCC warning

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On 23/05/2020 07:38, Simon Urbanek wrote:
> Adrian,
> 
> newer compilers are better at finding bugs - you may want to read the full trace of the error, it tells you that you likely have a memory overflow when using strncpy() in your package. You should check whether it is right. Unfortunately we can’t help you more specifically, because I don't see any link to what you submitted so can’t look at the code involved.

NB: debian-gcc on CRAN does have the latest version of gcc (10.1) and 
the link would likely have given fuller details (such links are provided 
on CRAN report pages but I do not know for submissions).

gcc does sometimes give false alarms here (there is one for R with gcc 
 >= 9 and another for gcc >= 10) but see 
https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2018/05/24/detecting-string-truncation-with-gcc-8/ 
.  Most can easily be workaround by cleaner code.

> 
> Cheers,
> Simon
> 
> 
> 
>> On May 22, 2020, at 7:25 PM, Adrian Dușa <dusa.adrian using gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I am trying to submit a package on CRAN, and everything passes ok on all platforms but Debian, where CRAN responds with an automatic "significant" warning:
>>
>> * checking whether package ‘QCA’ can be installed ... [35s/35s] WARNING
>> Found the following significant warnings:
>>   /usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/bits/string_fortified.h:106:10: warning: ‘__builtin_strncpy’ output may be truncated copying 12 bytes from a string of length 79 [-Wstringop-truncation]
>> See ‘/srv/hornik/tmp/CRAN/QCA.Rcheck/00install.out’ for details.
>>
>>
>> I know the cause of this: using a cursomized version of some external C library, coupled with <SystemRequirements: GNU make> in the Description.
>>
>> But I do not know hot to get past this warning, since it refers to a builtin GCC function strncpy. As far as I read, this should be solved by a simple GCC upgrade to the newest version, but that is something outside my code base, since GCC resides on the CRAN servers.
>>
>> In the meantime, to get the package published, did anyone encountered a similar problem? If so, is there a workaround?
>>
>> —
>> Adrian Dusa
>> University of Bucharest
>> Romanian Social Data Archive
>> Soseaua Panduri nr. 90-92
>> 050663 Bucharest sector 5
>> Romania
>> https://adriandusa.eu


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley using stats.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford