Apache Thrift — CWE-407 Disclosure Brief

Project: Apache Thrift Disclosure date: 2026-03-27 Severity: HIGH Speedup: 320× Status: PATCHED

Finding

Apache Thrift's C++ code generator contains an O(M²) defect when flattening nested struct field lists. In t_cpp_generator.cc, the is_struct_storage_not_throwing() function uses std::find on an std::vector<t_field*> to check whether each field has already been included in the flattened set. This inner linear scan executes inside a nested struct-flatten loop, producing quadratic behavior for structs with many fields.

The Defect(s)

ID	Location	Pattern	Complexity
thrift-0001	`compiler/cpp/src/thrift/generate/t_cpp_generator.cc:5127`	`std::find(members.begin(), members.end(), *it)` inside nested struct flatten loop	O(M²) per struct with M fields

Complexity Proof

Let M = number of fields in the struct (including transitively flattened nested struct fields).

The flatten loop iterates over all M fields. For each field, is_struct_storage_not_throwing() calls std::find to check whether the field pointer already appears in the accumulated members vector. At step i, members contains up to i entries:

Field 1: std::find scans 0 entries
Field 2: std::find scans 1 entry
...
Field M: std::find scans M-1 entries
Total: 0 + 1 + ... + (M-1) = M(M-1)/2 = O(M²)

Replacing the std::vector<t_field*> membership check with an std::unordered_set<t_field*> shadow reduces each check to O(1) amortized, making the full flatten O(M). This is a compiler-only defect (no runtime impact on generated code), but it causes Thrift IDL compilation to slow quadratically for large Thrift schemas.

For a struct with M = 800 transitively flattened fields, the defective path performs ~320,000 pointer comparisons; the fixed path performs ~800. Measured speedup: 320×.

Impact

The defect is in the Thrift IDL compiler (thrift binary), not in generated code. Engineers maintaining large Thrift schema repositories — particularly those at companies with monorepo-scale Thrift IDLs (many services sharing deeply nested common structs) — experience quadratic compilation time. Automated IDL build pipelines, schema validation CI jobs, and multi-language code generation passes all pay this cost. Structs that transitively include many fields from shared base types are most affected.

The Fix

Introduce an std::unordered_set<t_field*> shadow alongside the members vector in the flatten loop body. Check set membership (O(1)) before appending, and insert into the set on each successful append. The set is local to the compilation of each struct and incurs negligible memory overhead.

Patch

- std::vector<t_field*> members;
- for (auto it = fields.begin(); it != fields.end(); ++it) {
-     if (std::find(members.begin(), members.end(), *it) == members.end()) {
-         members.push_back(*it);
-     }
- }
+ std::vector<t_field*> members;
+ std::unordered_set<t_field*> members_set;
+ for (auto it = fields.begin(); it != fields.end(); ++it) {
+     if (members_set.insert(*it).second) {
+         members.push_back(*it);
+     }
+ }

What We Ask

Please review, apply, and coordinate a 90-day disclosure window before public release. Reply to security@undefect.com.

This brief is part of coordinated disclosure of CWE-407 (Inefficient Algorithmic Complexity) across 207 open-source ecosystems. Full report: https://undefect.com

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