attention.t27: three functions index by an unbounded position or seq_len, past buffers the same file sizes by CONTEXT_LEN #3432

Follow-up to #3430, where I listed cache_kv as needing "either a new parameter or .len, and that is a decision". It is not. The bound was declared eleven lines above it.

const CONTEXT_LEN : usize = 81;         // Max sequence length

Three functions, one file, the same shape

In the generated Rust each of these panics. In C they do not: void cache_kv(AttentionBuffers* buffers, size_t position, double* cache_k, double* cache_v) — a bare pointer, so the write simply happens.

The intent was already written down, twice

The declaration carries the shape in a comment:

//   cache_k: []f32, cache_v: []f32,  // [CONTEXT_LEN][EMBED_DIM]

and the specs own test allocates exactly that:

when cache_kv(&buffers, 0, cache_k, [0.0; EMBED_DIM * CONTEXT_LEN])

So the precondition was stated in a comment, exercised by a test, and enforced by nothing.

The fix

Each function guards on CONTEXT_LEN. compute_scores clamps seq_len rather than returning, because a caller asking for more than the buffer holds still wants the rows that exist.

The bound is a constant, not .len, deliberately — the same reasoning as #3431: a []T loses its length at the C ABI, so a .len-based guard would exist in Rust and Zig and be absent from C. With a constant the identical check appears in all three:

void cache_kv(...) { if ((position >= CONTEXT_LEN)) { return ; }

pub fn cache_kv(...) -> () { if (position >= CONTEXT_LEN) { return (); }

fn cache_kv(...) void { ... if (position >= CONTEXT_LEN) { return ; }

rustc errors on the file are unchanged at 23 — those are pre-existing and from other causes.

What this says about the audit one pass ago

I put cache_kv in the "needs a decision" column because I looked at the function and not at the file. The constant it needed was in the same file, the shape was in a comment on the declaration, and the test already allocated to it. Two of the three functions here were not even in that audit — I found them only by reading the neighbours of the one I had flagged.