Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
stdlib: The qsort implementation needs to use heapsort in more cases
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
The existing logic avoided internal stack overflow.  To avoid
a denial-of-service condition with adversarial input, it is necessary
to fall over to heapsort if tail-recursing deeply, too, which does
not result in a deep stack of pending partitions.

The new test stdlib/tst-qsort5 is based on Douglas McIlroy's paper
on this subject.

Reviewed-by: Adhemerval Zanella  <adhemerval.zanella@linaro.org>
  • Loading branch information
fweimer-rh committed Nov 21, 2023
1 parent 55364e1 commit 64e4acf
Show file tree
Hide file tree
Showing 3 changed files with 187 additions and 4 deletions.
3 changes: 3 additions & 0 deletions stdlib/Makefile
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -215,6 +215,7 @@ tests := \
tst-qsort \
tst-qsort2 \
tst-qsort3 \
tst-qsort5 \
tst-quick_exit \
tst-rand48 \
tst-rand48-2 \
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -512,3 +513,5 @@ $(objpfx)tst-setcontext3.out: tst-setcontext3.sh $(objpfx)tst-setcontext3
'$(run-program-env)' '$(test-program-prefix-after-env)' \
$(common-objpfx)stdlib/; \
$(evaluate-test)

$(objpfx)tst-qsort5: $(libm)
17 changes: 13 additions & 4 deletions stdlib/qsort.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -389,14 +389,23 @@ __qsort_r (void *const pbase, size_t total_elems, size_t size,
{
if ((size_t) (hi - left_ptr) <= max_thresh)
/* Ignore both small partitions. */
top = pop (top, &lo, &hi, &depth);
{
top = pop (top, &lo, &hi, &depth);
--depth;
}
else
/* Ignore small left partition. */
lo = left_ptr;
{
/* Ignore small left partition. */
lo = left_ptr;
--depth;
}
}
else if ((size_t) (hi - left_ptr) <= max_thresh)
/* Ignore small right partition. */
hi = right_ptr;
{
hi = right_ptr;
--depth;
}
else if ((right_ptr - lo) > (hi - left_ptr))
{
/* Push larger left partition indices. */
Expand Down
171 changes: 171 additions & 0 deletions stdlib/tst-qsort5.c
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
/* Adversarial test for qsort_r.
Copyright (C) 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This file is part of the GNU C Library.
The GNU C Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
The GNU C Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
License along with the GNU C Library; if not, see
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. */

/* The approach follows Douglas McIlroy, A Killer Adversary for
Quicksort. Software—Practice and Experience 29 (1999) 341-344.
Downloaded <http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/mdmspe.pdf>
(2023-11-17). */

#include <math.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <support/check.h>
#include <support/support.h>

struct context
{
/* Called the gas value in the paper. This value is larger than all
other values (length minus one will do), so comparison with any
decided value has a known result. */
int undecided_value;

/* If comparing undecided values, one of them as to be assigned a
value to ensure consistency with future comparisons. This is the
value that will be used. Starts out at zero. */
int next_decided;

/* Used to trick pivot selection. Deciding the value for the last
seen undcided value in a decided/undecided comparison happens
to trick the many qsort implementations. */
int last_undecided_index;

/* This array contains the actually asigned values. The call to
qsort_r sorts a different array that contains indices into this
array. */
int *decided_values;
};

static int
compare_opponent (const void *l1, const void *r1, void *ctx1)
{
const int *l = l1;
const int *r = r1;
struct context *ctx = ctx1;
int rvalue = ctx->decided_values[*r];
int lvalue = ctx->decided_values[*l];

if (lvalue == ctx->undecided_value)
{
if (rvalue == ctx->undecided_value)
{
/* Both values are undecided. In this case, make a decision
for the last-used undecided value. This is tweak is very
specific to quicksort. */
if (*l == ctx->last_undecided_index)
{
ctx->decided_values[*l] = ctx->next_decided;
++ctx->next_decided;
/* The undecided value or *r is greater. */
return -1;
}
else
{
ctx->decided_values[*r] = ctx->next_decided;
++ctx->next_decided;
/* The undecided value for *l is greater. */
return 1;
}
}
else
{
ctx->last_undecided_index = *l;
return 1;
}
}
else
{
/* *l is a decided value. */
if (rvalue == ctx->undecided_value)
{
ctx->last_undecided_index = *r;
/* The undecided value for *r is greater. */
return -1;
}
else
return lvalue - rvalue;
}
}

/* Return a pointer to the adversarial permutation of length N. */
static int *
create_permutation (size_t n)
{
struct context ctx =
{
.undecided_value = n - 1, /* Larger than all other values. */
.decided_values = xcalloc (n, sizeof (int)),
};
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i)
ctx.decided_values[i] = ctx.undecided_value;
int *scratch = xcalloc (n, sizeof (int));
for (size_t i = 0; i < n; ++i)
scratch[i] = i;
qsort_r (scratch, n, sizeof (*scratch), compare_opponent, &ctx);
free (scratch);
return ctx.decided_values;
}

/* Callback function for qsort which counts the number of invocations
in *CLOSURE. */
static int
compare_counter (const void *l1, const void *r1, void *closure)
{
const int *l = l1;
const int *r = r1;
unsigned long long int *counter = closure;
++*counter;
return *l - *r;
}

/* Count the comparisons required for an adversarial permutation of
length N. */
static unsigned long long int
count_comparisons (size_t n)
{
int *array = create_permutation (n);
unsigned long long int counter = 0;
qsort_r (array, n, sizeof (*array), compare_counter, &counter);
free (array);
return counter;
}

/* Check the scaling factor for one adversarial permutation of length
N, and report some statistics. */
static void
check_one_n (size_t n)
{
unsigned long long int count = count_comparisons (n);
double factor = count / (n * log (count));
printf ("info: length %zu: %llu comparisons ~ %f * n * log (n)\n",
n, count, factor);
/* This is an arbitrary factor which is true for the current
implementation across a wide range of sizes. */
TEST_VERIFY (factor <= 4.5);
}

static int
do_test (void)
{
check_one_n (100);
check_one_n (1000);
for (int i = 1; i <= 15; ++i)
check_one_n (i * 10 * 1000);
return 0;
}

#include <support/test-driver.c>

0 comments on commit 64e4acf

Please sign in to comment.