Re: [PATCH 0/9] commit-reach: -Wsign-compare follow-ups

> On Fri, Dec 27, 2024 at 12:08:03PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> I doubt there is a way to tell the compiler that (or that a compiler
> could even switch to an unsigned ptrdiff type if it knew that). But I
> wonder if there is a generalized helper we can devise that would avoid
> simply casting here. I guess that could be a checked cast like:
> 
>   static inline size_t ptrdiff_to_size(ptrdiff_t v)
>   {
> 	if (v < 0)
> 		BUG("surprising negative value: %"PRIdMAX, v);
> 	return (size_t)v;
>   }
> 
> or even:
> 
>   static inline bool has_space(const void *vs, const void *ve, size_t want)
>   {
> 	const char *s = vs, e = ve;
> 	return want <= ptrdiff_to_size(ve - vs);
>   }
> 
> I don't love hiding basic things like this behind macros or inlines. But
> allocation and bounds comparisons do have gotchas (especially against an
> adversary that can try to create pathological situations). Maybe it's worth
> having an easy way to do them safely without having to think about each
> one. I dunno.