FIO38-C. Do not use a copy of a FILE object for input and output

The address of the FILE object used to control a stream may be significant; a copy of a FILE object need not serve in place of the original.

According to C99, Section 7.19.3 p6:

The address of the FILE object used to control a stream may be significant; a copy of a FILE object need not serve in place of the original.

Consequently, do not use a copy of a FILE object in any input/output operations.

Noncompliant Code Example

This noncompliant code example can fail because a copy of stdout is being used in the call to fputs().

int main(void) {
  FILE my_stdout = *(stdout);
  if (fputs("Hello, World!\n", &my_stdout) == EOF) {
    /* Handle error */
  }
  return 0;
}

For example, this noncompliant example fails with an "access violation" when compiled under Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and run under Windows.

In this compliant solution, a copy of the pointer to the FILE object is used in the call to fputs().

int main(void) {
  FILE *my_stdout = stdout;
  if (fputs("Hello, World!\n", my_stdout) == EOF) {
    /* Handle error */
  }
  return 0;
}

Using a copy of a FILE object in place of the original may result in a crash, which can be used in a denial-of-service attack.

Rule	Severity	Likelihood	Remediation Cost	Priority	Level
FIO38-C	low	probable	medium	P4	L3

Compass/ROSE can detect simple violations of this rule.

Search for vulnerabilities resulting from the violation of this rule on the CERT website.

[[ISO/IEC 9899:1999]] Section 7.19.3, "Files"