boringssl/STYLE

BoringSSL Style Guide.

BoringSSL usually follows the Google C++ style guide, found below. The
rest of this document describes differences and clarifications on top
of the base guide.

https://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cppguide.html


Legacy code.

As a derivative of OpenSSL, BoringSSL contains a lot of legacy code
that does not follow this style guide. Particularly where public API
is concerned, balance consistency within a module with the benefits of
a given rule. Module-wide deviations on naming should be respected
while integer and return value conventions take precedence over
consistency.

Some modules have seen few changes, so they still retain the original
indentation style for now. When editing these, try to retain the
original style. For Emacs, doc/c-indentation.el from OpenSSL may be
helpful in this.


Language.

The majority of the project is in C, so C++-specific rules in the
Google style guide do not apply. Support for C99 features depends on
our target platforms. Typically, Chromium's target MSVC is the most
restrictive.

Variable declarations in the middle of a function are allowed.

Comments should be /* C-style */ for consistency.

When declaration pointer types, * should be placed next to the variable
name, not the type. So

  uint8_t *ptr;

not

  uint8_t* ptr;

Rather than malloc() and free(), use the wrappers OPENSSL_malloc() and
OPENSSL_free(). Use the standard C assert() function freely.

For new constants, prefer enums when the values are sequential and typed
constants for flags. If adding values to an existing set of #defines, continue
with #define.


Formatting.

Single-statement blocks are not allowed. All conditions and loops must
use braces:

  if (foo) {
    do_something();
  }

not

  if (foo)
    do_something();


Integers.

Prefer using explicitly-sized integers where appropriate rather than
generic C ones. For instance, to represent a byte, use uint8_t, not
unsigned char. Likewise, represent a two-byte field as uint16_t, not
unsigned short.

Sizes are represented as size_t.

Within a struct that is retained across the lifetime of an SSL
connection, if bounds of a size are known and it's easy, use a smaller
integer type like uint8_t. This is a "free" connection footprint
optimization for servers. Don't make code significantly more complex
for it, and do still check the bounds when passing in and out of the
struct. This narrowing should not propagate to local variables and
function parameters.

When doing arithmetic, account for overflow conditions.

Except with platform APIs, do not use ssize_t. MSVC lacks it, and
prefer out-of-band error signaling for size_t (see Return values).


Naming.

Define structs with typedef named TYPE_NAME. The corresponding struct
should be named struct type_name_st.

Name public functions as MODULE_function_name, unless the module
already uses a different naming scheme for legacy reasons. The module
name should be a type name if the function is a method of a particular
type.

Some types are allocated within the library while others are
initialized into a struct allocated by the caller, often on the
stack. Name these functions TYPE_NAME_new/TYPE_NAME_free and
TYPE_NAME_init/TYPE_NAME_cleanup, respectively.

If a variable is the length of a pointer value, it has the suffix
_len. An output parameter is named out or has an out_ prefix. For
instance, For instance:

  uint8_t *out,
  size_t *out_len,
  const uint8_t *in,
  size_t in_len,

Name public headers like include/openssl/evp.h with header guards like
OPENSSL_HEADER_EVP_H. Name internal headers like crypto/ec/internal.h
with header guards like OPENSSL_HEADER_EC_INTERNAL_H.

Name enums like unix_hacker_t. For instance:

enum should_free_handshake_buffer_t {
  free_handshake_buffer,
  dont_free_handshake_buffer,
};


Return values.

As even malloc may fail in BoringSSL, the vast majority of functions
will have a failure case. Functions should return int with one on
success and zero on error. Do not overload the return value to both
signal success/failure and output an integer. For example:

  OPENSSL_EXPORT int CBS_get_u16(CBS *cbs, uint16_t *out);

If a function needs more than a true/false result code, define an enum
rather than arbitrarily assigning meaning to int values.

If a function outputs a pointer to an object on success and there are no
other outputs, return the pointer directly and NULL on error.


Parameters.

Where not constrained by legacy code, parameter order should be:

1. context parameters
2. output parameters
3. input parameters

For example,

/* CBB_add_asn sets |*out_contents| to a |CBB| into which the contents of an
 * ASN.1 object can be written. The |tag| argument will be used as the tag for
 * the object. It returns one on success or zero on error. */
OPENSSL_EXPORT int CBB_add_asn1(CBB *cbb, CBB *out_contents, uint8_t tag);


Documentation.

All public symbols must have a documentation comment in their header
file. The style is based on that of Go. The first sentence begins with
the symbol name, optionally prefixed with "A" or "An". Apart from the
initial mention of symbol, references to other symbols or parameter
names should be surrounded by |pipes|. Don't be too verbose, but do
document success and failure behaviors.

/* EVP_DigestVerifyUpdate appends |len| bytes from |data| to the data which
 * will be verified by |EVP_DigestVerifyFinal|. It returns one on success and
 * zero otherwise. */
OPENSSL_EXPORT int EVP_DigestVerifyUpdate(EVP_MD_CTX *ctx, const void *data,
                                          size_t len);

Explicitly mention any surprising edge cases or deviations from common
return value patterns in legacy functions.

/* RSA_private_encrypt encrypts |flen| bytes from |from| with the private key in
 * |rsa| and writes the encrypted data to |to|. The |to| buffer must have at
 * least |RSA_size| bytes of space. It returns the number of bytes written, or
 * -1 on error. The |padding| argument must be one of the |RSA_*_PADDING|
 * values. If in doubt, |RSA_PKCS1_PADDING| is the most common.
 *
 * WARNING: this function is dangerous because it breaks the usual return value
 * convention. Use |RSA_sign_raw| instead. */
OPENSSL_EXPORT int RSA_private_encrypt(int flen, const uint8_t *from,
                                       uint8_t *to, RSA *rsa, int padding);

Document private functions in their internal.h header or, if static,
where defined.