Subject: Re: bug#73444: 30.0.50; mingw-w64: Emacs uses CRT's `read` when _FORTIFY_SOURCE > 0

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2024 14:48:57 +0300

> From: Óscar Fuentes <[email-masked]>
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2024 00:15:11 +0200
> 
> 
> On Onssee
> When the macro _FORTIFY_SOURCE > 0, mingw-64 provides an inline
> definition of `read` on io.h:
> 
> __mingw_bos_extern_ovr
> int read(int __fh, void * __dst, unsigned int __n)
> {
>   return _read(__fh, __dst, __n);
> }

Isn't that a bug in MinGW64's io.h?  They should have used

  __mingw_bos_extern_ovr
  int (read)(int __fh, void * __dst, unsigned int __n)
  {
    return _read(__fh, __dst, __n);
  }

Then we could modify the macro slightly as follows:

  #define read(h,d,n) sys_read(h,d,n)

and avoid the problem.  The above is how you protect your functions
from being interpreted as macro invocations.  But I guess this is
water under the bridge now?

> A hack that avoids this consists on doing something like:
> 
> #define read dummy_read
> // etc
> #include <io.h>
> // etc
> #undef read
> #define read sys_read
> int sys_read (int, char *, unsigned int);

This indeed needs the prototype for sys_read, which is less desirable,
because we lose the ability to have the prototype exactly match io.h
without knowing what's in io.h.  But I guess there's no better way,
sigh...

> or simpler but untested:
> #define _read sys_read
> // etc
> #include <io.h>
> // etc

That's simply wrong: we do NOT want to replace the Microsoft '_read',
we want to replace the Posix 'read' where it is used by Emacs.

> Either way it is necessary to condition the hack on the value of
> _FORTIFY_SOURCE.

We could do that unconditionally, no?

Does the MinGW64 build with _FORTIFY_SOURCE work, after taking
care of that?

> More generally, the way Emacs/NT overrides the CRT functions is
> susceptible to break anytime upstream does something like, this case,
> adding an inline definition, or some other unanticipated change. AFAIK
> the C standard says that precisely what Emacs is doing incurs on
> undefined behavior.
> 
> Any ideas about how to future-proof the solution for this problem?

Not elegant ones, no.  We are redirecting Posix functions to our
implementations where Emacs expects them to do something the MS
runtime doesn't, and we don't want to reproduce all the stuff in the
system headers that is related to those functions, including specific
data types, symbols, etc.

> BTW, the initial bug report for this was in March 2023 and only today
> was succesfully analyzed (1) This gives an idea of how problematic this
> practice of redefining standard functions can be.

Trying to make Emacs work well on MS-Windows is problematic in itself,
so we shouldn't be surprised it uses some "unconventional" techniques.