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The provenance memory model for C

(gustedt.wordpress.com)
225 points HexDecOctBin | 1 comments | 30 Jun 25 09:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.229s | source
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b0a04gl ◴[30 Jun 25 15:02 UTC] No.44424206[source]▶
provenance model basically turns memory back into a typed value. finally malloc wont just be a dumb number generator, it'll act more like a capability issuer. and access is not 'is this address in range' anymore, but “does this pointer have valid provenance”. way more deterministic, decouples gcc -wall
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HexDecOctBin ◴[30 Jun 25 15:28 UTC] No.44424492[source]▶
Will this create more nasal demons? I always disable strict aliasing, and it's not clear to me after reading the whole article whether provenance is about making sane code illegal, or making previously illegal sane code legal.
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1. layer8 ◴[30 Jun 25 16:21 UTC] No.44425068[source]▶
This is basically a formalization of the general understanding one already had when reading the C standard thoroughly 25 years ago. At least I was nodding along throughout the article. It cleans up the parts where the standard was too imprecise and handwavy.