GitLab

In addition to -ftrivial-auto-var-init=pattern (used by
CONFIG_INIT_STACK_ALL now) Clang also supports zero initialization for
locals enabled by -ftrivial-auto-var-init=zero. The future of this flag
is still being debated (see https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45497).
Right now it is guarded by another flag,
-enable-trivial-auto-var-init-zero-knowing-it-will-be-removed-from-clang,
which means it may not be supported by future Clang releases. Another
possible resolution is that -ftrivial-auto-var-init=zero will persist
(as certain users have already started depending on it), but the name
of the guard flag will change.

In the meantime, zero initialization has proven itself as a good
production mitigation measure against uninitialized locals. Unlike pattern
initialization, which has a higher chance of triggering existing bugs,
zero initialization provides safe defaults for strings, pointers, indexes,
and sizes. On the other hand, patt...