June 4, 2017 by Roberto Di Remigio

Turn On Compiler Warnings!

Compiler warnings can be a nuisance, clogging the output with unnecessarily verbose information. This is especially true of C++, even more so when the code uses template magic. However, turning them off can be rather harmful.

TL;DR

Set -Wall -Wextra, or equivalent, as your basic compiler flags, both in debug and in release mode. If you are using CMake, the Autocmake project does it by default.

An example from the cnpy library

Consider the following C++11 example, but it applies equally well to earlier standards. The cnpy library for saving/loading C++ arrays to/from NumPy binary format has a basic data structure, called NpyArray. An object of this type is constructed by supplying:

The constructor will then compute how large a memory buffer is needed and allocate a std::vector<char>. The number of values in the array is computed from the shape array:

size_t nValues = 1;
for (size_t i = 0; i < shape.size(); ++i)
  nValues *= shape[i];

or more compactly using std::accumulate:

nValues = std::accumulate(shape.begin(), shape.end(),
                          1, std::multiplies<size_t>());

The type information is encoded in the .npy file format header. When loading the array the user will have to perform a reinterpret_cast to get the correct data type.

Runtime error!

Stripped to its barebones, the NpyArray class looks like this:

    #include <algorithm>
#include <cassert>
#include <iostream>
#include <numeric>
#include <vector>

struct VectorWtf
{
  VectorWtf(const std::vector<size_t> & s, size_t w) :
    nValues_(std::accumulate(s.begin(),
                                 s.end(),
                                 1,
                                 std::multiplies<size_t>())),
    buffer_(nValues_ * w, char(0)) {
      std::cout << "nValues_ " << nValues_ << std::endl;
      std::cout << "w " << w << std::endl;
      std::cout << "nValues_ * w " << nValues_ * w << std::endl;
      assert(buffer_.size() == nValues_ * w);
      for (size_t i = 0; i < nValues_ * w; ++i) {
        std::cout << buffer_[i] << std::endl;
      }
      std::cout << "buffer_.size() " << buffer_.size() << std::endl;
  }

  std::vector<char> buffer_;
  size_t nValues_;
};

int main()
{
  std::vector<size_t> shape({10, 11});
  size_t w = 16;

  VectorWtf(shape, w);

  return 0;
}

Let’s now try to compile it:

g++ -std=c++11 -O0 main.cpp && ./a.out

The live example on Coliru shows that we get a runtime error because the assertion in the constructor fails.

nValues_ 110
w 16
nValues_ * w 1760
a.out: main.cpp:18: VectorWtf::VectorWtf(const std::vector<long unsigned int>&, size_t): Assertion `buffer_.size() == nValues_ * w' failed.
bash: line 7: 13432 Aborted                 (core dumped) ./a.out

What’s happening? Well, a very, very stupid mistake. The buffer_ data member is initialized using the nValues_ data member This shouldn’t be a problem, since it’s initialized first in the constructor, right? Wrong! According to the standard, 12.6.2 Section 13.3 data members are initialized in the order they were declared in the class. Thus buffer_ gets initialized first, using an undefined value for nValues_.

Fixing it

The correct struct declaration is thus:

    #include <algorithm>
#include <cassert>
#include <iostream>
#include <numeric>
#include <vector>

struct VectorWtf
{
  VectorWtf(const std::vector<size_t> & s, size_t w) :
    nValues_(std::accumulate(s.begin(),
                                 s.end(),
                                 1,
                                 std::multiplies<size_t>())),
    buffer_(nValues_ * w, char(0)) {
      std::cout << "nValues_ " << nValues_ << std::endl;
      std::cout << "w " << w << std::endl;
      std::cout << "nValues_ * w " << nValues_ * w << std::endl;
      assert(buffer_.size() == nValues_ * w);
      for (size_t i = 0; i < nValues_ * w; ++i) {
        std::cout << buffer_[i] << std::endl;
      }
      std::cout << "buffer_.size() " << buffer_.size() << std::endl;
  }

  size_t nValues_;
  std::vector<char> buffer_;
};

int main()
{
  std::vector<size_t> shape({10, 11});
  size_t w = 16;

  VectorWtf(shape, w);

  return 0;
}

which also honors the tenet of ordering data members in your classes and structs by their size in memory. However, this is something very easily forgotten. How to avoid these kinds of errors?

  1. Do not initialize data members based on other data members. This is, in my opinion, overly restrictive.
  2. Insert assertions in the constructors. Very useful, but assertions only work when -DNDEBUG is not given to the compiler. Most of the times this is not the case when compiling with optimization.
  3. Turn on compiler warnings. -Wall catches this mistake and many others. For an extra layer of warnings, I also turn on -Wextra. This is the output on Coliru
   main.cpp: In constructor 'VectorWtf::VectorWtf(const std::vector<long unsigned int>&, size_t)':
   main.cpp:27:10: warning: 'VectorWtf::nValues_' will be initialized after [-Wreorder]
      size_t nValues_;
             ^~~~~~~~
   main.cpp:26:21: warning:   'std::vector<char> VectorWtf::buffer_' [-Wreorder]
      std::vector<char> buffer_;
                        ^~~~~~~
   main.cpp:9:3: warning:   when initialized here [-Wreorder]
      VectorWtf(const std::vector<size_t> & s, size_t w) :
      ^~~~~~~~~

Get in touch! We are Roberto Di Remigio and Radovan Bast.