[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] avcodec/get_bits: consider bit_size of 0 an error

[Reimar Döffinger]

On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 05:04:38PM +0000, Paul B Mahol wrote:
> On 10/28/13, Reimar Doeffinger <Reimar.Doeffinger at gmx.de> wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 04:52:27PM +0000, Paul B Mahol wrote:
> >> Signed-off-by: Paul B Mahol <onemda at gmail.com>
> >
> > Could you add the reason for this change to the commit message?
> > In theory being able to use 0 might work as an optimization in
> > some cases, so I don't think supporting it is as nonsense as it
> > might seem.
> 
> What kind of optimization?

Purely theoretical: You have a value A, depending on that following
value B is either not encoded, encoded with 2, 5 or 8 bits.
If get_bits supports 0 bits then you can just do something like
get_bits(... (int){0, 2, 5, 8}[A]);
if 0 is not allowed, you have to explicitly skip the get_bits for
A == 0.

> If return value is never checked and bit_size is negative number next
> get_bits will happily crash.

But negative number is already checked, your patch is about checking 0?!