module: simplify version-attribute handling

Instead of using the array-of-pointers trick to avoid having gcc mess up
the built-in module-version array stride, specify type alignment when
declaring entries to prevent gcc from increasing alignment.

This is essentially an alternative (one-line) fix to the problem
addressed by commit b4bc842802db ("module: deal with alignment issues in
built-in module versions").

gcc can increase the alignment of larger objects with static extent as
an optimisation, but this can be suppressed by using the aligned
attribute when declaring variables.

Note that we have been relying on this behaviour for kernel parameters
for 16 years and it indeed hasn't changed since the introduction of the
aligned attribute in gcc-3.1.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20201103175711.10731-1-johan@kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Johan Hovold <johan@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Jessica Yu <jeyu@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 4 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/kernel/params.c b/kernel/params.c
index 3835fb82c64b..aa7d6f2213f1 100644
--- a/kernel/params.c
+++ b/kernel/params.c
@@ -843,18 +843,16 @@ ssize_t __modver_version_show(struct module_attribute *mattr,
 	return scnprintf(buf, PAGE_SIZE, "%s\n", vattr->version);
 }
 
-extern const struct module_version_attribute *__start___modver[];
-extern const struct module_version_attribute *__stop___modver[];
+extern const struct module_version_attribute __start___modver[];
+extern const struct module_version_attribute __stop___modver[];
 
 static void __init version_sysfs_builtin(void)
 {
-	const struct module_version_attribute **p;
+	const struct module_version_attribute *vattr;
 	struct module_kobject *mk;
 	int err;
 
-	for (p = __start___modver; p < __stop___modver; p++) {
-		const struct module_version_attribute *vattr = *p;
-
+	for (vattr = __start___modver; vattr < __stop___modver; vattr++) {
 		mk = locate_module_kobject(vattr->module_name);
 		if (mk) {
 			err = sysfs_create_file(&mk->kobj, &vattr->mattr.attr);