Forward an invocation of a variadic function in C

Question

In C, is it possible to forward the invocation of a variadic function? As in,

int my_printf(char *fmt, ...) {
    fprintf(stderr, \"Calling printf with fmt %         


        

Answer 1

As it is not really possible to forward such calls in a nice way, we worked around this by setting up a new stack frame with a copy of the original stack frame. However this is highly unportable and makes all kinds of assumptions, e.g. that the code uses frame pointers and the 'standard' calling conventions.

This header file allows to wrap variadic functions for x86_64 and i386 (GCC). It doesn't work for floating-point arguments, but should be straight forward to extend for supporting those.

#ifndef _VA_ARGS_WRAPPER_H
#define _VA_ARGS_WRAPPER_H
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

/* This macros allow wrapping variadic functions.
 * Currently we don't care about floating point arguments and
 * we assume that the standard calling conventions are used.
 *
 * The wrapper function has to start with VA_WRAP_PROLOGUE()
 * and the original function can be called by
 * VA_WRAP_CALL(function, ret), whereas the return value will
 * be stored in ret.  The caller has to provide ret
 * even if the original function was returning void.
 */

#define __VA_WRAP_CALL_FUNC __attribute__ ((noinline))

#define VA_WRAP_CALL_COMMON()                                        \
    uintptr_t va_wrap_this_bp,va_wrap_old_bp;                        \
    va_wrap_this_bp  = va_wrap_get_bp();                             \
    va_wrap_old_bp   = *(uintptr_t *) va_wrap_this_bp;               \
    va_wrap_this_bp += 2 * sizeof(uintptr_t);                        \
    size_t volatile va_wrap_size = va_wrap_old_bp - va_wrap_this_bp; \
    uintptr_t *va_wrap_stack = alloca(va_wrap_size);                 \
    memcpy((void *) va_wrap_stack,                                   \
        (void *)(va_wrap_this_bp), va_wrap_size);


#if ( __WORDSIZE == 64 )

/* System V AMD64 AB calling convention */

static inline uintptr_t __attribute__((always_inline)) 
va_wrap_get_bp()
{
    uintptr_t ret;
    asm volatile ("mov %%rbp, %0":"=r"(ret));
    return ret;
}


#define VA_WRAP_PROLOGUE()           \
    uintptr_t va_wrap_ret;           \
    uintptr_t va_wrap_saved_args[7]; \
    asm volatile  (                  \
    "mov %%rsi,     (%%rax)\n\t"     \
    "mov %%rdi,  0x8(%%rax)\n\t"     \
    "mov %%rdx, 0x10(%%rax)\n\t"     \
    "mov %%rcx, 0x18(%%rax)\n\t"     \
    "mov %%r8,  0x20(%%rax)\n\t"     \
    "mov %%r9,  0x28(%%rax)\n\t"     \
    :                                \
    :"a"(va_wrap_saved_args)         \
    );

#define VA_WRAP_CALL(func, ret)            \
    VA_WRAP_CALL_COMMON();                 \
    va_wrap_saved_args[6] = (uintptr_t)va_wrap_stack;  \
    asm volatile (                         \
    "mov      (%%rax), %%rsi \n\t"         \
    "mov   0x8(%%rax), %%rdi \n\t"         \
    "mov  0x10(%%rax), %%rdx \n\t"         \
    "mov  0x18(%%rax), %%rcx \n\t"         \
    "mov  0x20(%%rax),  %%r8 \n\t"         \
    "mov  0x28(%%rax),  %%r9 \n\t"         \
    "mov           $0, %%rax \n\t"         \
    "call             *%%rbx \n\t"         \
    : "=a" (va_wrap_ret)                   \
    : "b" (func), "a" (va_wrap_saved_args) \
    :  "%rcx", "%rdx",                     \
      "%rsi", "%rdi", "%r8", "%r9",        \
      "%r10", "%r11", "%r12", "%r14",      \
      "%r15"                               \
    );                                     \
    ret = (typeof(ret)) va_wrap_ret;

#else

/* x86 stdcall */

static inline uintptr_t __attribute__((always_inline))
va_wrap_get_bp()
{
    uintptr_t ret;
    asm volatile ("mov %%ebp, %0":"=a"(ret));
    return ret;
}

#define VA_WRAP_PROLOGUE() \
    uintptr_t va_wrap_ret;

#define VA_WRAP_CALL(func, ret)        \
    VA_WRAP_CALL_COMMON();             \
    asm volatile (                     \
    "mov    %2, %%esp \n\t"            \
    "call  *%1        \n\t"            \
    : "=a"(va_wrap_ret)                \
    : "r" (func),                      \
      "r"(va_wrap_stack)               \
    : "%ebx", "%ecx", "%edx"   \
    );                                 \
    ret = (typeof(ret))va_wrap_ret;
#endif

#endif

In the end you can wrap calls like this:

int __VA_WRAP_CALL_FUNC wrap_printf(char *str, ...)
{
    VA_WRAP_PROLOGUE();
    int ret;
    VA_WRAP_CALL(printf, ret);
    printf("printf returned with %d \n", ret);
    return ret;
}