Implement conversion traits for PhysAddr and VirtAddr #394

mikeleany · 2022-10-23T02:30:55Z

Implements the following conversions:

TryFrom<u64> for VirtAddr and PhysAddr
TryFrom<usize> for VirtAddr and PhysAddr
From<u32> for VirtAddr and PhysAddr
TryFrom<*const T> for VirtAddr
TryFrom<*mut T> for VirtAddr
From<&T> for VirtAddr
From<&mut T> for VirtAddr
From<VirtAddr> for u64, *const T and *mut T
From<PhysAddr> for u64

I restricted pointer and usize conversions with #[cfg(any(target_pointer_width = "32", target_pointer_width = "64"))]. This restriction isn't strictly necessary for TryFrom, but without it we would need a different error type than what try_new uses.

Closes #268.
See also #293 (comment) by @josephlr.

phil-opp · 2022-10-23T12:39:39Z

Thanks for the PR! Looks all reasonable to me.

cc @josephlr @Freax13 What do you think about these new impls?

Freax13 · 2022-10-23T12:55:21Z

src/addr.rs

+#[cfg(any(target_pointer_width = "32", target_pointer_width = "64"))]
+impl<T> From<&T> for VirtAddr {
+    #[inline]
+    fn from(addr: &T) -> Self {
+        Self::new(addr as *const _ as u64)
+    }
+}
+
+#[cfg(any(target_pointer_width = "32", target_pointer_width = "64"))]
+impl<T> From<&mut T> for VirtAddr {
+    #[inline]
+    fn from(addr: &mut T) -> Self {
+        Self::new(addr as *mut _ as u64)
+    }
+}


These could fail on different architectures. Do we want to care about that given that most users will probably run on x86?

Ah yeah, good point! I guess we could a target_arch cfg-gate to avoid this?

Yes, that'd work

Changes these to target_arch. The target_pointer_width ought to be reasonable if the target_arch is x86 or x86_64, so I just removed those.

I was also wondering if we ought to use target_arch for the raw pointer conversions. I left them for now, since they implement TryFrom instead of From, but those really don't make a whole lot of sense on non-x86 based architectures.

Freax13 · 2022-10-23T12:56:04Z

src/addr.rs

+    }
+}
+
+#[cfg(any(target_pointer_width = "32", target_pointer_width = "64"))]


There's also target_pointer_width = "16".

Added target_pointer_width = "16" where applicable.

Freax13 · 2022-10-24T20:01:42Z

Do we want to deprecate the old conversion methods/constructors?

josephlr · 2022-10-24T20:32:17Z

Do we want to deprecate the old conversion methods/constructors?

I think the only issue here would be that some of those are const, while the trait implementations might not be (at least for now).

Otherwise the idea seems reasonable to me.

Freax13 · 2022-11-03T09:46:36Z

We should unify the cfg gates for pointer conversions and similar operations, we use four different variations:

cfg(target_pointer_width = "64")
- VirtAddr::as_ptr, VirtAddr::as_mut_ptr
- <VirtAddr as Add<usize>>::add, <VirtAddr as AddAssign<usize>>::add_assign, <VirtAddr as Sub<usize>>::sub, <VirtAddr as SubAssign<usize>>::sub_assign, <PhysAddr as Add<usize>>::add, <PhysAddr as AddAssign<usize>>::add_assign, <PhysAddr as Sub<usize>>::sub, <PhysAddr as SubAssign<usize>>::sub_assign
  - These implementations are removed on the next branch because we implement these traits for u64.
- <*const T as From<VirtAddr>>::from, <*mut T as From<VirtAddr>>::from
  - introduced by this pr
cfg(any(target_pointer_width = "32", target_pointer_width = "64"))
- VirtAddr::from_ptr
  - There's a comment stating that we do this for backward compatibily reasons, this has already been changed to cfg(target_pointer_width = "64") on the next branch.
cfg(any(target_pointer_width = "16", target_pointer_width = "32", target_pointer_width = "64"))
- <VirtAddr as TryFrom<usize>>::try_from, <VirtAddr as TryFrom<*const T>>::try_from and <VirtAddr as TryFrom<*mut T>>::try_from
  - introduced by this pr
cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))
- <VirtAddr as From<&T>>::from and <VirtAddr as From<&mut T>>::from
  - introduced by this pr

It's not entirely clear to me which variation we should use.

Freax13 · 2022-11-03T09:47:21Z

src/addr.rs

+#[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
+impl<T> From<&T> for VirtAddr {
+    #[inline]
+    fn from(addr: &T) -> Self {
+        Self::new(addr as *const _ as u64)
+    }
+}
+
+#[cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64"))]
+impl<T> From<&mut T> for VirtAddr {
+    #[inline]
+    fn from(addr: &mut T) -> Self {
+        Self::new(addr as *mut _ as u64)
+    }
+}


These could technically fail if Intel's 5 level paging is active.

This possibility was mentioned in issue #293, here and here.

The last comment on the subject, by @josephlr was:

Personally, I think the panic is fine (for now). Before we (potentially) support 5-level paging, we can just have a disclaimer that is like: "if you use 5-level paging, some methods might panic, but safety will not be violated".

No disclaimer has been added yet, but I can add one if that's the course we want to take.

Personally, I think the panic is fine (for now). Before we (potentially) support 5-level paging, we can just have a disclaimer that is like: "if you use 5-level paging, some methods might panic, but safety will not be violated".

That seems like a good pragmatic option to me. Intel's LAM (Linear Address Masking) and AMD's UAI (Upper Address Ignore) can also cause problems because they relax the requirements on pointers to be canonical.

No disclaimer has been added yet, but I can add one if that's the course we want to take.

That'd be great, thanks!

mikeleany · 2022-11-07T01:57:02Z

@Freax13

We should unify the cfg gates for pointer conversions and similar operations, we use four different variations:

It's not entirely clear to me which variation we should use.

For conversions from pointers (and references), I think cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")) makes the most sense to me because

there's a legitimate use case to convert x86 pointers to a VirtAddr when running 16-bit or 32-bit system initialization code prior to entering long mode,
but a pointer on any other architecture is not likely to correspond in any way with a virtual address on x86_64, even if the pointers happen to be the same size.

For conversions to pointers target_arch = "x86" cannot be allowed for infallible conversions. Perhaps we could implement From when on x86_64 and TryFrom on x86 if people want that.

usize is a little different since it's an integer rather than a pointer. However, as I think about it, I think it makes more sense to require conversion from a u64 rather than usize on non-x86 based architectures, even if usize happens to be 64 bits. Doing otherwise would encourage non-portable code.

So I think the following cfg gates might be the most reasonable in my view:

cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")) whenever converting from pointers or usize to VirtAddr

cfg(target_arch = "x86_64) whenever performing infallible conversions from VirtAddr to pointers or usize

However, if I modified the cfg gates on the existing inherent methods, that would technically be a breaking change, though I'm not sure if that would actually affect anybody.

Freax13 · 2022-11-07T11:34:41Z

For conversions from pointers (and references), I think cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")) makes the most sense to me because

there's a legitimate use case to convert x86 pointers to a VirtAddr when running 16-bit or 32-bit system initialization code prior to entering long mode,

but a pointer on any other architecture is not likely to correspond in any way with a virtual address on x86_64, even if the pointers happen to be the same size.

For conversions to pointers target_arch = "x86" cannot be allowed for infallible conversions. Perhaps we could implement From when on x86_64 and TryFrom on x86 if people want that.

👍

usize is a little different since it's an integer rather than a pointer. However, as I think about it, I think it makes more sense to require conversion from a u64 rather than usize on non-x86 based architectures, even if usize happens to be 64 bits. Doing otherwise would encourage non-portable code.

We could also just drop the usize impls. There's already some precedence for preferring u64 impls over usize impls: #364.

So I think the following cfg gates might be the most reasonable in my view:

cfg(any(target_arch = "x86", target_arch = "x86_64")) whenever converting from pointers or usize to VirtAddr

cfg(target_arch = "x86_64) whenever performing infallible conversions from VirtAddr to pointers or usize

👍

However, if I modified the cfg gates on the existing inherent methods, that would technically be a breaking change, though I'm not sure if that would actually affect anybody.

Yes, breaking changes should only be merged into the next branch. This could be done in a follow up pr.

mikeleany added 3 commits October 22, 2022 16:50

Impl From and TryFrom traits for VirtAddr.

4a01d73

Impl From and TryFrom traits for PhysAddr.

f750e82

Impl From<VirtAddr> for *const T and *mut T.

63feae8

mikeleany marked this pull request as ready for review October 23, 2022 02:39

Freax13 reviewed Oct 23, 2022

View reviewed changes

Adjust cfgs on pointer-sized converions.

f914de1

Freax13 reviewed Nov 3, 2022

View reviewed changes

Freax13 added the waiting-on-author Waiting for the author to act on review feedback. label Sep 15, 2023

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Implement conversion traits for PhysAddr and VirtAddr #394

Implement conversion traits for PhysAddr and VirtAddr #394

mikeleany commented Oct 23, 2022

phil-opp commented Oct 23, 2022

Freax13 Oct 23, 2022

phil-opp Oct 23, 2022

Freax13 Oct 23, 2022

mikeleany Oct 31, 2022

mikeleany Oct 31, 2022

Freax13 Oct 23, 2022

mikeleany Oct 31, 2022

Freax13 commented Oct 24, 2022

josephlr commented Oct 24, 2022

Freax13 commented Nov 3, 2022 •

edited

Freax13 Nov 3, 2022

mikeleany Nov 7, 2022

Freax13 Nov 7, 2022 •

edited

mikeleany commented Nov 7, 2022

Freax13 commented Nov 7, 2022

Implement conversion traits for PhysAddr and VirtAddr #394

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Implement conversion traits for PhysAddr and VirtAddr #394

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Freax13 commented Oct 24, 2022

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mikeleany commented Nov 7, 2022

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