Uninitialized pointers with `__free` attribute can cause undefined
behaviour as the memory assigned(randomly) to the pointer is freed
automatically when the pointer goes out of scope

arm doesn't have any bugs related to this as of now, but
it is better to initialize and assign pointers with `__free` attr
in one statement to ensure proper scope-based cleanup

Reported-by: Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@linaro.org>
Closes: https://lore.kernel.org/all/aPiG_F5EBQUjZqsl@stanley.mountain/
Signed-off-by: Ally Heev <allyheev@gmail.com>
---
 drivers/firmware/arm_scmi/shmem.c | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/firmware/arm_scmi/shmem.c b/drivers/firmware/arm_scmi/shmem.c
index 11c347bff766763c61100f884432c2e4669e5918..dadb37557f8aee25465e1a423dfcb4a889852434 100644
--- a/drivers/firmware/arm_scmi/shmem.c
+++ b/drivers/firmware/arm_scmi/shmem.c
@@ -196,7 +196,6 @@ static void __iomem *shmem_setup_iomap(struct scmi_chan_info *cinfo,
 				       struct resource *res,
 				       struct scmi_shmem_io_ops **ops)
 {
-	struct device_node *shmem __free(device_node);
 	const char *desc = tx ? "Tx" : "Rx";
 	int ret, idx = tx ? 0 : 1;
 	struct device *cdev = cinfo->dev;
@@ -205,7 +204,9 @@ static void __iomem *shmem_setup_iomap(struct scmi_chan_info *cinfo,
 	void __iomem *addr;
 	u32 reg_io_width;
 
-	shmem = of_parse_phandle(cdev->of_node, "shmem", idx);
+	struct device_node *shmem __free(device_node) = of_parse_phandle(cdev->of_node,
+		"shmem", idx);
+
 	if (!shmem)
 		return IOMEM_ERR_PTR(-ENODEV);
 

---
base-commit: c9cfc122f03711a5124b4aafab3211cf4d35a2ac
change-id: 20251105-aheev-uninitialized-free-attr-arm-cf3516ba1a18

Best regards,
-- 
Ally Heev <allyheev@gmail.com>

On Wed, Nov 05, 2025 at 07:37:52PM +0530, Ally Heev wrote:
> Uninitialized pointers with `__free` attribute can cause undefined
> behaviour as the memory assigned(randomly) to the pointer is freed
> automatically when the pointer goes out of scope

Hi,

> 
> arm doesn't have any bugs related to this as of now, but
> it is better to initialize and assign pointers with `__free` attr
> in one statement to ensure proper scope-based cleanup
>

Thanks for this, I agree that it is better to stick to the intended
usage-pattern in order to avoid future issues when the nearby code
changes; for this reason I would also NOT add a Fix tag (...like you
effectively did NOT...just to clarify why :P)

Reviewed-by: Cristian Marussi <cristian.marussi@arm.com>

Thanks,
Cristian