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Make string_hash independent of char signedness (#10163)

`string_hash`'s tail-byte handling reads bytes through plain `char`,
whose signedness is implementation-defined. On signed-char platforms
(x86_64 Linux, macOS) bytes ≥ `0x80` are sign-extended before entering
the hash state (e.g. `c+=((unsigned)data[10]<<24);` becomes `c +=
0xFF80xxxx` instead of `c += 0x0080xxxx`); on unsigned-char platforms
(Linux aarch64) they are not. Hashes of byte strings containing such
bytes therefore differ across platforms.

This is not just cosmetic: `mpz_manager::hash` feeds the digit arrays of
large numerals through `string_hash`, so AST hashes of bit-vector
constants like `(_ bv36028797018963968 64)` (= 2^55, whose digit bytes
include `0x80`) differ between architectures. AST hashes determine hash
table layouts throughout the solver, so preprocessing and search take
platform-dependent paths for byte-identical input.

Observed impact (Z3 4.15.3 release binaries as well as local gcc-13
builds, identical `.smt2` input generated by CBMC from the
[mldsa-native](https://github.com/pq-code-package/mldsa-native)
verification suite — quantifiers + arrays + bit-vectors, ~120k lines):

| instance | x86_64 | aarch64 |
|---|---|---|
| instance A | 643 s | 11.7 s |
| instance B | 22.8 s | 1578 s |

Tracing AST construction on both hosts showed the first divergence at
the registration of the numeral `2^55`, whose node hash was `2587296535`
on x86_64 vs `808470355` on aarch64, with identical mpz digit arrays;
from that point on, hash table iteration orders (and consequently
`ctx-simplify` steps, quantifier instantiation order, and case-split
order) diverge. With this patch, instance A solves in ~21 s on x86_64
(down from 643 s), matching the aarch64 behaviour class.

The fix casts the tail bytes to `unsigned char`, matching the
4-byte-chunk path (which is already signedness-independent via `memcpy`
into `unsigned`). Note that hash values on signed-char platforms change
for inputs containing bytes ≥ `0x80` (pure-ASCII symbol names are
unaffected).

(Found while investigating cross-platform proof-time instability
reported in diffblue/cbmc#8991.)

Co-authored-by: Kiro <kiro-agent@users.noreply.github.com>
This commit is contained in:
Michael Tautschnig 2026-07-22 04:03:48 +02:00 committed by GitHub
parent 09aaadf963
commit 0105b220fd
No known key found for this signature in database
GPG key ID: B5690EEEBB952194

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@ -53,38 +53,38 @@ unsigned string_hash(std::string_view str, unsigned init_value) {
c += length;
switch(len) { /* all the case statements fall through */
case 11:
c+=((unsigned)data[10]<<24);
c+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[10]<<24);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 10:
c+=((unsigned)data[9]<<16);
c+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[9]<<16);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 9 :
c+=((unsigned)data[8]<<8);
c+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[8]<<8);
Z3_fallthrough;
/* the first byte of c is reserved for the length */
case 8 :
b+=((unsigned)data[7]<<24);
b+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[7]<<24);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 7 :
b+=((unsigned)data[6]<<16);
b+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[6]<<16);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 6 :
b+=((unsigned)data[5]<<8);
b+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[5]<<8);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 5 :
b+=data[4];
b+=(unsigned char)data[4];
Z3_fallthrough;
case 4 :
a+=((unsigned)data[3]<<24);
a+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[3]<<24);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 3 :
a+=((unsigned)data[2]<<16);
a+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[2]<<16);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 2 :
a+=((unsigned)data[1]<<8);
a+=((unsigned)(unsigned char)data[1]<<8);
Z3_fallthrough;
case 1 :
a+=data[0];
a+=(unsigned char)data[0];
/* case 0: nothing left to add */
break;
}