[openssl-project] Style question

[Matt Caswell]

I've been looking at our use of EVP_MD_size() (prompted by Coverity).

That function can return a -1 on error:

int EVP_MD_size(const EVP_MD *md)
{
    if (!md) {
        EVPerr(EVP_F_EVP_MD_SIZE, EVP_R_MESSAGE_DIGEST_IS_NULL);
        return -1;
    }
    return md->md_size;
}


The only (current) possible error is that the passed digest is NULL.
Otherwise it returns the size of the digest as you would expect.

In some places we do things like this:

        const EVP_MD *md = ssl_md(s->session->cipher->algorithm2);

        if (md != NULL) {
            /*
             * Add the fixed PSK overhead, the identity length and the
binder
             * length.
             */
            hlen +=  PSK_PRE_BINDER_OVERHEAD + s->session->ext.ticklen
                     + EVP_MD_size(md);
        }

So we have an explicit NULL check of the md before we call the function.
Therefore there is no possible way that EVP_MD_size() can return
anything except a success response.

Are we entitled to assume that? Or should we always check the return
value regardless? My instinct says we should in case we ever wanted to
change the function in the future to return an error in some other
circumstances.

Just to make it more interesting our documentation does not mention the
possibility of an error return at all.

Matt