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Diffstat (limited to 'windows/liblzma-crt-mixing.txt')
-rw-r--r-- | windows/liblzma-crt-mixing.txt | 70 |
1 files changed, 70 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/windows/liblzma-crt-mixing.txt b/windows/liblzma-crt-mixing.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ef2f8a --- /dev/null +++ b/windows/liblzma-crt-mixing.txt @@ -0,0 +1,70 @@ + +liblzma.dll and mixing C runtimes (CRTs) +---------------------------------------- + + If possible, liblzma.dll should be linked against the same CRT + (MSVCRT or UCRT) as the application calling the liblzma functions. + When this isn't possible, liblzma.dll will still work but there + are a few API functions that need extra care. + + Each CRT has its own memory allocator, stdio FILE implementation, + mapping of file descriptors from _open() to Windows' HANDLEs, and + so on. Mixing CRTs is a problem if, for example, one library calls + fopen() and then passes the resulting FILE* to a second library and + these two libraries use different CRTs. liblzma doesn't expose FILE + pointers or file descriptors in the API but the problem can occur + with memory allocation with a few specific functions. + + The most commonly-used API functions in liblzma are such that both + memory allocation and deallocation is done internally by liblzma, + thus most applications won't have any problems with mixing CRTs + with liblzma.dll. The following API functions are the exception: + + lzma/block.h: + lzma_block_header_decode + + lzma/filter.h: + lzma_filters_copy + lzma_filters_free + lzma_properties_decode + lzma_filter_flags_decode + lzma_str_to_filters + lzma_str_from_filters + lzma_str_list_filters + + Excluding lzma_filters_free(), the above functions allocate memory + and leave it to the caller to free it. lzma_filters_free() frees + memory given to it, and that memory may have been allocated outside + of liblzma. + + For example, if application calls lzma_str_list_filters(&ptr, ...) + and then uses free(ptr), something bad (memory corruption, crash) + will happen if the application and liblzma.dll aren't using the + same CRT. This can be worked around with a few lines of extra code. + + All these functions (and many others too) take a pointer to + lzma_allocator structure as an argument. Typically it is set to + NULL to let liblzma use malloc() and free() (and also calloc() + as it is faster than malloc() + memset()). A custom lzma_allocator + can be used to wrap malloc() and free() from application's CRT: + + static void * LZMA_API_CALL + my_alloc(void *opaque, size_t nmemb, size_t size) + { + // liblzma guarantees that this won't overflow. + return malloc(nmemb * size); + } + + static void LZMA_API_CALL + my_free(void *opaque, void *ptr) + { + free(ptr); + } + + static const lzma_allocator allocator + = { &my_alloc, &my_free, NULL }; + + By passing &allocator to the problematic functions, CRT mixing + should not cause any problems. There is no need to use &allocator + with functions other than those listed above. + |