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uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments()

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  • R rparon

    a trick that I am testing is to put the initializing argc, argv values

    int argc = 1;
    const char* argv[] = {"MyDll"," "," "};
    

    as extern (equivalent to static)
    this seems to solve the problem but I am surprised that Qt doesn't make an internal copy...
    indeed I did assume that (the internal copy) and never presumed they must be static...
    were you aware of that ?

    Christian EhrlicherC Offline
    Christian EhrlicherC Offline
    Christian Ehrlicher
    Lifetime Qt Champion
    wrote last edited by
    #21

    @rparon said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

    int argc = 1;

    This is still wrong as you pass one parameter...

    No reproducer, no fix of the obvious errors so no help from my side.

    Qt Online Installer direct download: https://download.qt.io/official_releases/online_installers/
    Visit the Qt Academy at https://academy.qt.io/catalog

    Kent-DorfmanK 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • Christian EhrlicherC Christian Ehrlicher

      @rparon said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

      int argc = 1;

      This is still wrong as you pass one parameter...

      No reproducer, no fix of the obvious errors so no help from my side.

      Kent-DorfmanK Offline
      Kent-DorfmanK Offline
      Kent-Dorfman
      wrote last edited by
      #22

      @Christian-Ehrlicher said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

      @rparon said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

      int argc = 1;

      This is still wrong as you pass one parameter...

      No reproducer, no fix of the obvious errors so no help from my side.

      the "Willingness to help" argument aside, I'm curious about your problem with the argc assignment, from a purely technical point of view.

      So what if the argv list is longer than one element. The argc is an arbitrary limit that must not be greater than the number of elements in the list, lest you access out of bound memory. Sure, it is "SUPPOSE" to be the actual length of the argv list but in the context of this test, does it matter?

      Christian EhrlicherC 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • Kent-DorfmanK Kent-Dorfman

        @Christian-Ehrlicher said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

        @rparon said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

        int argc = 1;

        This is still wrong as you pass one parameter...

        No reproducer, no fix of the obvious errors so no help from my side.

        the "Willingness to help" argument aside, I'm curious about your problem with the argc assignment, from a purely technical point of view.

        So what if the argv list is longer than one element. The argc is an arbitrary limit that must not be greater than the number of elements in the list, lest you access out of bound memory. Sure, it is "SUPPOSE" to be the actual length of the argv list but in the context of this test, does it matter?

        Christian EhrlicherC Offline
        Christian EhrlicherC Offline
        Christian Ehrlicher
        Lifetime Qt Champion
        wrote last edited by
        #23

        @Kent-Dorfman said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

        tual length of the argv list but in the context of this test, does it matter?

        The first argument is always the executable name. And I doubt it's what the first arg here is. He wants a parameter or whatever. Otherwise why fiddle around with QCoreApplication::arguments?
        but we just have to guess due to a missing reproduce.

        Qt Online Installer direct download: https://download.qt.io/official_releases/online_installers/
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        1 Reply Last reply
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        • R Offline
          R Offline
          rparon
          wrote last edited by
          #24

          I understand the different points of view, to clarify :

          int argc = 1;
          const char* argv[] = {"MyDll"," "," "};
          

          is based on Qt documentation

          argc must be greater than zero and argv must contain at least one valid character string, argc = 1 is a correct value.

          Converting vars from local to global / extern seems to solve the problem

          1 Reply Last reply
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          • R rparon

            I am observing access violation exceptions (see attached screenshot) due to uninitialized data when exec() (see the code below) calls QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments(), verified in Qt 6.8.3

            CODE

            int argc = 1;
            const char* argv[] = {"MyDll"," "," "};
            qapp_pt = cv_new QGuiApplication(argc, (char**) argv);
            if (qapp_pt == NULL)
            	{
            	return(false);
            	}
            
            QQmlApplicationEngine* QmlEngine;
            
            QmlEngine = cv_new QQmlApplicationEngine();
            if (QmlEngine == NULL)
                {
                return(result);
                }
            
            // run QMLEngine and load Main.qml,
            QmlEngine->load(QUrl(QStringLiteral("qrc:/GuiModule/mydll/resource/Main.qml")));
            
            // in this version loadFromModule() doesn't work, 
            // maybe a different CMake configuration or a different call to loadFromModule ?  
            // QmlEngine->addImportPath("mydll/resource");
            // QmlEngine->loadFromModule("GuiModule","Main");
            
            
            // exception thrown here !!		
            result = qapp_pt->exec();
            

            the code is inside a shared library (Qt project) the CMakeList.txt to create the project is

            CMAKEFILE.TXT

            cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.16)
            
            find_package(Qt6 REQUIRED COMPONENTS Quick Gui Core QmlImportScanner)
            
            qt_add_library(mydll 
                	SHARED   
                    mydll/mydllx.cpp 
            	)
            	
            qt_add_qml_module(mydll
                VERSION 1.28	
                URI GuiModule	
                RESOURCE_PREFIX "/"
                NO_PLUGIN
            
                
                IMPORTS
                Quick 
                Gui 
                Qml 
                Core
            
                SOURCES
            
                	mydll/gxpage/test_page.cpp 
            
                RESOURCES
                    mydll/mydllresources.qrc	
            
                QML_FILES
            	mydll/resource/Main.qml
            
                )
            
            set_target_properties(mydll
                                  PROPERTIES
                                  PREFIX ""
                                  OUTPUT_NAME "mydll"
                                  SUFFIX ".dll")
            
             
            # link QT-QML libraries and mylib
            target_link_libraries(mydll PRIVATE
                Qt6::Gui
                Qt6::Quick
                Qt::QuickControls2
                ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/mylib.lib		
                )
            
             set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS_RELEASE "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS_RELEASE} /MT /Ox")
             set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE}  /MT /Ox")
             set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS_DEBUG "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS_DEBUG} /MTd")
             set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_DEBUG "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_DEBUG}  /MTd")
            

            DISCUSSION

            Qt should initialize (by default) all the vars passed to QCoreApplication but according many tests there are exceptions...

            To solve the reported problem I think there are at least two options :

            1. modify qcoreapplication.cpp and recompile (from source) Qt library, the problem is that when I edit / change qcoreapplication.cpp , run configure.bat and then compile there are several errors generated, probably I can't run configure but follow some other procedure, do you know if a detailed procedure to edit / modify source in Qt library is available for review ?

            2. before to call qapp_pt->exec() (see the code above) call some method in Qt library to force a reliable initialization of all vars passed to QCoreApplication, do you know if there is a method which does that ?

            Thank you for help !!

            exception_report.jpg

            jeremy_kJ Offline
            jeremy_kJ Offline
            jeremy_k
            wrote last edited by
            #25

            @rparon said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

            const char* argv[] = {"MyDll"," "," "};
            qapp_pt = cv_new QGuiApplication(argc, (char**) argv);
            

            This is always the wrong thing to do. This code is telling the compiler to allocate something as const, and then instructing it to ignore the const-ness when passing to a function that has a type signature allowing modification.

            Quoting from the above link:

            Such object cannot be modified: attempt to do so directly is a compile-time error, and attempt to do so indirectly (e.g., by modifying the const object through a reference or pointer to non-const type) results in undefined behavior.

            https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/ub.html

            • undefined behavior - There are no restrictions on the behavior of the program.
              • Some examples of undefined behavior are data races, memory accesses outside of array bounds, signed integer overflow, null pointer dereference, more than one modifications of the same scalar in an expression without any intermediate sequence point(until C++11)that is unsequenced(since C++11), access to an object through a pointer of a different type, etc.

            Furthermore, the QGuiApplication, the documentation explicitly mentions the possibility of modification:

            Note: argc and argv might be changed as Qt removes command line arguments that it recognizes.

            Asking a question about code? http://eel.is/iso-c++/testcase/

            1 Reply Last reply
            1
            • R Offline
              R Offline
              rparon
              wrote last edited by rparon
              #26

              Hi jeremy_k,
              that is an interesting point,
              argc, argv date back to Unix times,
              see The C programming Language, Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie which includes many examples with command lines...
              however it is not a normal practice to modify directly the values passed via command line so, for that purpose, any constant value should be ok... (but I am prepared to accept different opinions)

              JonBJ jeremy_kJ 2 Replies Last reply
              0
              • R rparon

                Hi jeremy_k,
                that is an interesting point,
                argc, argv date back to Unix times,
                see The C programming Language, Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie which includes many examples with command lines...
                however it is not a normal practice to modify directly the values passed via command line so, for that purpose, any constant value should be ok... (but I am prepared to accept different opinions)

                JonBJ Offline
                JonBJ Offline
                JonB
                wrote last edited by
                #27

                @rparon said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

                however it is not a normal practice to modify directly the values passed via command line

                You can Google is it normal to alter argv to find out that it is perfectly acceptable to alter this or its content. I have no comment on "normal". It is not acceptable to modify any of the actual strings' content "in place" or extend them etc., though reassigning a pointer in argv[] to point to a new string is fine.

                If you ever supplied a fully compilable, working, minimal repro of your situation and what exactly to change from what to what to move it from crashing to working one could comment and explain. Without that we don't know and it's guesswork as to what is going on.

                1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • R Offline
                  R Offline
                  rparon
                  wrote last edited by
                  #28

                  JonB,
                  correct, standards as C99 state that parameters argc and argv and the strings pointed to by the argv array shall be modifiable by the program....
                  I do not know if Qt alters those values but that introduces new possible origins for that behaviour ...

                  JonBJ 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • R rparon

                    JonB,
                    correct, standards as C99 state that parameters argc and argv and the strings pointed to by the argv array shall be modifiable by the program....
                    I do not know if Qt alters those values but that introduces new possible origins for that behaviour ...

                    JonBJ Offline
                    JonBJ Offline
                    JonB
                    wrote last edited by
                    #29

                    @rparon

                    @JonB said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

                    If you ever supplied a fully compilable, working, minimal repro of your situation and what exactly to change from what to what to move it from crashing to working one could comment and explain. Without that we don't know and it's guesswork as to what is going on.

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • R Offline
                      R Offline
                      rparon
                      wrote last edited by rparon
                      #30

                      Hi JonB,
                      noted, unfortunatelly I have many other things to debug / correct... providing the solution I am testing works reliably,
                      I'll modify the code as said,
                      thank you very much for help

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • R rparon

                        Hi jeremy_k,
                        that is an interesting point,
                        argc, argv date back to Unix times,
                        see The C programming Language, Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie which includes many examples with command lines...
                        however it is not a normal practice to modify directly the values passed via command line so, for that purpose, any constant value should be ok... (but I am prepared to accept different opinions)

                        jeremy_kJ Offline
                        jeremy_kJ Offline
                        jeremy_k
                        wrote last edited by
                        #31

                        @rparon said in uninitialized data passed to QStringList QCoreApplication::arguments():

                        Hi jeremy_k,
                        that is an interesting point,

                        The point seems to have been missed. Treating const data as non-const is undefined behavior, and the C++ standard allows a conforming implementation to do anything when UB is invoked.

                        Command line arguments and historical usage are irrelevant.

                        Asking a question about code? http://eel.is/iso-c++/testcase/

                        1 Reply Last reply
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