Re: bin/60403: efi -v dumps core

The following reply was made to PR bin/60403; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Robert Elz <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/60403: efi -v dumps core
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:29:40 +0700

     Date:        Sat,  4 Jul 2026 15:55:00 +0000 (UTC)
     From:        "[email protected] via gnats" <[email protected]>
     Message-ID:  <[email protected]>
 
   | #2  0x00007497d989da2d in __assert13 (file=file@entry=0x7fa6eb "/usr/src/sbin/efi/devpath.c", line=line@entry=94, function=function@entry=0x7fe6e0 <__func__.0> "collapse_list", failedexpr=failedexpr@entry=0x7fa707 "next == NULL") at /usr/src/lib/libc/gen/assert.c:72
   |         buf = "assertion \"next == NULL\" failed: file \"/usr/src/sbin/efi/devpath.c\", line 94, function \"collapse_list\"\n\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\000P\000\000\000\000\000\000\300\000 \331\227t\000\000\000\000\000\000\000\001\000\000\000\020\000\000\000\000\000\000\200w\\\377\177\177\000\000d:\206\331\227t\000\000\000\020", '\000' <repeats 14 times>, "\177w\\\377\177\177\000\000\000P", '\000' <repeats 14 times>...
 
 
 Apologies, I have had this fixed in a local copy of efi for just a few
 days under a year now, I never committed it, as I have never been sure
 what the correct approach really is (it is generating the text to display
 for a variable value which is formatted in a legal way internally, though
 one very rarely ever seen, but for which I have been unable to locate
 anything in the EFI standards which says what the text representation
 for it should be).
 
 One thing I am certain of however is that using assert(3) to validate
 data coming from outside the program is the height of laziness, and
 should never be allowed - that is what is happening here, if it simply
 complained about an unexpected form of variable encoding, and went on,
 you could just ignore the unusual one (for me, it was a linux BOOTxxxx
 variable, for a linux that was no longer installed...)
 
 I will commit my change as I have it now, if needed it can be updated
 later, and then will see about a pullup to -11 (I don't think the efi
 command exists in -10).
 
 kre