Using fpc 3.0.4 on Fedora 30.
I've just started using the StrToHostAddr6 function in the sockets unit to parse IPv6 addresses. I've found a couple of issues with it.
1. Even if address parsing fails, StrToHostAddr6 doesn't return an all-zero result in the in6_addr return value. The documentation states that it does, but my tests show it doesn't.
This can be trivially demonstrated with a program like so:
program ip6bug;
uses
SysUtils, sockets;
procedure parse_print_ip6(addr: String);
var
ip6: in6_addr;
idx: Cardinal;
begin
ip6 := StrToHostAddr6(addr);
write('"' + addr+'" ' + '-> ');
for idx := 0 to 15 do
write(IntToHex(byte(ip6.s6_addr8[idx]),2)+'-');
writeln();
end;
const
addr = 'fxg%::906e:9d2f:a520:4172';
begin
parse_print_ip6(addr);
end.On my machine this produces:
"fxg%::906e:9d2f:a520:4172" ->
00-00-00-60-68-74-E0-00-00-00-00-61-4F-2B-60-00-
The problem is that the StrToHostAddr6 function doesn't set its return value until the end of the function. If a parse error occurs mid-function, it zeroes the record in which it's writing the result but exits without setting the function return value. What gets returned depends on what's on the stack.
I could have sworn that fpc would detect a function exiting without setting a return value, but clearly 3.0.4 doesn't.
2. The second problem is that a colon-separated string containing hexadecimal values of any length will be parsed and treated as valid by StrToHostAddr6. E.g, it will parse a string like
"fe80ca2f1::906e:9d2f:a520:4172". The sample program produces this output for this string:
"fe80ca2f1::906e:9d2f:a520:4172" ->
A2-F1-00-00-00-00-00-00-90-6E-9D-2F-A5-20-41-72-
For the part before the first colon, it has discarded all but the last two bytes, A2 and F1. But it should not have accepted this string at all. There can be only four characters between the colons.
Neither of these are difficult to fix. But I am curious to know why the compiler lets a function return without setting a return value and doesn't at least issue a warning. I know it does in some cases, because I've often seen the message "Function result doesn't appear to be set". But maybe that's only if you never set the result, as opposed to setting it only for some paths through the code.