encoding/json: error when encoding a pointer cycle

Otherwise we'd panic with a stack overflow.

Most programs are in control of the data being encoded and can ensure
there are no cycles, but sometimes it's not that simple. For example,
running a user's html template with script tags can easily result in
crashes if the user can find a pointer cycle.

Adding the checks via a map to every ptrEncoder.encode call slowed down
the benchmarks below by a noticeable 13%. Instead, only start doing the
relatively expensive pointer cycle checks if we're many levels of
pointers deep in an encode state.

A threshold of 1000 is small enough to capture pointer cycles before
they're a problem (the goroutine stack limit is currently 1GB, and I
needed close to a million levels to reach it). Yet it's large enough
that reasonable uses of the json encoder only see a tiny 1% slow-down
due to the added ptrLevel field and check.

	name           old time/op    new time/op    delta
	CodeEncoder-8    2.34ms ± 1%    2.37ms ± 0%  +1.05%  (p=0.000 n=10+10)
	CodeMarshal-8    2.42ms ± 1%    2.44ms ± 0%  +1.10%  (p=0.000 n=10+10)

	name           old speed      new speed      delta
	CodeEncoder-8   829MB/s ± 1%   820MB/s ± 0%  -1.04%  (p=0.000 n=10+10)
	CodeMarshal-8   803MB/s ± 1%   795MB/s ± 0%  -1.09%  (p=0.000 n=10+10)

	name           old alloc/op   new alloc/op   delta
	CodeEncoder-8    43.1kB ± 8%    42.5kB ±10%    ~     (p=0.989 n=10+10)
	CodeMarshal-8    1.99MB ± 0%    1.99MB ± 0%    ~     (p=0.254 n=9+6)

	name           old allocs/op  new allocs/op  delta
	CodeEncoder-8      0.00           0.00         ~     (all equal)
	CodeMarshal-8      1.00 ± 0%      1.00 ± 0%    ~     (all equal)

Finally, add a few tests to ensure that the code handles the edge cases
properly.

Fixes #10769.

Change-Id: I73d48e0cf6ea140127ea031f2dbae6e6a55e58b8
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/187920
Run-TryBot: Daniel Martí <mvdan@mvdan.cc>
TryBot-Result: Gobot Gobot <gobot@golang.org>
Reviewed-by: Bjørn Erik Pedersen <bjorn.erik.pedersen@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Andrew Bonventre <andybons@golang.org>

1 files changed, 27 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/src/encoding/json/encode.go b/src/encoding/json/encode.go
index b81e505866..39cdaebde7 100644
--- a/src/encoding/json/encode.go
+++ b/src/encoding/json/encode.go
@@ -153,7 +153,7 @@ import (
 //
 // JSON cannot represent cyclic data structures and Marshal does not
 // handle them. Passing cyclic structures to Marshal will result in
-// an infinite recursion.
+// an error.
 //
 func Marshal(v interface{}) ([]byte, error) {
 	e := newEncodeState()
@@ -285,17 +285,31 @@ var hex = "0123456789abcdef"
 type encodeState struct {
 	bytes.Buffer // accumulated output
 	scratch      [64]byte
+
+	// Keep track of what pointers we've seen in the current recursive call
+	// path, to avoid cycles that could lead to a stack overflow. Only do
+	// the relatively expensive map operations if ptrLevel is larger than
+	// startDetectingCyclesAfter, so that we skip the work if we're within a
+	// reasonable amount of nested pointers deep.
+	ptrLevel uint
+	ptrSeen  map[interface{}]struct{}
 }
 
+const startDetectingCyclesAfter = 1000
+
 var encodeStatePool sync.Pool
 
 func newEncodeState() *encodeState {
 	if v := encodeStatePool.Get(); v != nil {
 		e := v.(*encodeState)
 		e.Reset()
+		if len(e.ptrSeen) > 0 {
+			panic("ptrEncoder.encode should have emptied ptrSeen via defers")
+		}
+		e.ptrLevel = 0
 		return e
 	}
-	return new(encodeState)
+	return &encodeState{ptrSeen: make(map[interface{}]struct{})}
 }
 
 // jsonError is an error wrapper type for internal use only.
@@ -887,7 +901,18 @@ func (pe ptrEncoder) encode(e *encodeState, v reflect.Value, opts encOpts) {
 		e.WriteString("null")
 		return
 	}
+	if e.ptrLevel++; e.ptrLevel > startDetectingCyclesAfter {
+		// We're a large number of nested ptrEncoder.encode calls deep;
+		// start checking if we've run into a pointer cycle.
+		ptr := v.Interface()
+		if _, ok := e.ptrSeen[ptr]; ok {
+			e.error(&UnsupportedValueError{v, fmt.Sprintf("encountered a cycle via %s", v.Type())})
+		}
+		e.ptrSeen[ptr] = struct{}{}
+		defer delete(e.ptrSeen, ptr)
+	}
 	pe.elemEnc(e, v.Elem(), opts)
+	e.ptrLevel--
 }
 
 func newPtrEncoder(t reflect.Type) encoderFunc {