gh-99240: Reset pointer to NULL when the pointed memory is freed in argument parsing

Lib/test/test_capi/test_getargs.py

@@ -1085,6 +1085,10 @@ def test_Z_hash(self):
         with self.assertWarns(DeprecationWarning):
             self.assertIsNone(getargs_Z_hash(None))
 
+    def test_gh_99240_clear_args(self):
+        from _testcapi import gh_99240_clear_args
+        self.assertRaises(TypeError, gh_99240_clear_args, 'a', '\0b')
+
 
 class Object_TestCase(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_S(self):

Misc/NEWS.d/next/C API/2022-11-30-16-39-22.gh-issue-99240.67nAX-.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+In argument parsing, after deallocating newly allocated memory, reset its
+pointer to NULL.

Modules/_testcapi/getargs.c

@@ -854,6 +854,23 @@ getargs_s_hash_int2(PyObject *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwargs)
     Py_RETURN_NONE;
 }
 
+static PyObject *
+gh_99240_clear_args(PyObject *self, PyObject *args) {
+    char *a = NULL;
+    char *b = NULL;
+
+    if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "eses", "idna", &a, "idna", &b)) {
+        if (a || b) {
+            PyErr_Clear();
+            PyErr_SetString(PyExc_AssertionError, "Arguments are not cleared.");
+        }
+        return NULL;
+    }
+    PyMem_Free(a);
+    PyMem_Free(b);
+    Py_RETURN_NONE;
+}
+
 static PyMethodDef test_methods[] = {
     {"get_args",                get_args,                        METH_VARARGS},
     {"get_kwargs", _PyCFunction_CAST(get_kwargs), METH_VARARGS|METH_KEYWORDS},
@@ -906,6 +923,7 @@ static PyMethodDef test_methods[] = {
     {"test_empty_argparse",     test_empty_argparse,             METH_NOARGS},
     {"test_k_code",             test_k_code,                     METH_NOARGS},
     {"test_s_code",             test_s_code,                     METH_NOARGS},
+    {"gh_99240_clear_args",     gh_99240_clear_args,             METH_VARARGS},
     {NULL},
 };
 

Python/getargs.c

@@ -202,9 +202,9 @@ _PyArg_VaParse_SizeT(PyObject *args, const char *format, va_list va)
 static int
 cleanup_ptr(PyObject *self, void *ptr)
 {
-    if (ptr) {
-        PyMem_Free(ptr);
-    }
+    void **pptr = (void **)ptr;
+    PyMem_Free(*pptr);
+    *pptr = NULL;
     return 0;
 }
 
@@ -1116,7 +1116,7 @@ convertsimple(PyObject *arg, const char **p_format, va_list *p_va, int flags,
                     PyErr_NoMemory();
                     RETURN_ERR_OCCURRED;
                 }
-                if (addcleanup(*buffer, freelist, cleanup_ptr)) {
+                if (addcleanup(buffer, freelist, cleanup_ptr)) {
                     Py_DECREF(s);
                     return converterr(
                         "(cleanup problem)",
@@ -1162,7 +1162,7 @@ convertsimple(PyObject *arg, const char **p_format, va_list *p_va, int flags,
                 PyErr_NoMemory();
                 RETURN_ERR_OCCURRED;
             }
-            if (addcleanup(*buffer, freelist, cleanup_ptr)) {
+            if (addcleanup(buffer, freelist, cleanup_ptr)) {
                 Py_DECREF(s);
                 return converterr("(cleanup problem)",
                                 arg, msgbuf, bufsize);