Re: [PATCH] bisect: use "$GIT_DIR/BISECT_START" to check if we are bisecting

From: Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org>
Date: May 29, 2008, 04:01 UTC
Message-ID: <200805290601.19067.chriscool@tuxfamily.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vmymauzqg.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

Le mercredi 28 mai 2008, Junio C Hamano a écrit :

Show 18 quoted lines

> Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org> writes:
> > It seems simpler and safer to use the BISECT_START file everywhere
> > to decide if we are bisecting or not, instead of using it in some
> > places and BISECT_NAMES in other places.
> >
> > In commit 6459c7c6786aa9bda0c7a095c9db66c36da0e5f0 (Nov 18 2007,
> > Bisect: use "$GIT_DIR/BISECT_NAMES" to check if we are bisecting.),
> > we decided to use BISECT_NAMES but code changed a lot and we now
> > have to check BISECT_START first in the "bisect_start" function
> > anyway.
> >
> > This patch also makes things a little bit safer by creating
> > the BISECT_START file first and deleting it last, and also by
> > adding checks in "bisect_clean_state".
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org>
>
> What's the breakage scenario that this patch fixes?

Before this patch, in "bisect_clean_state" we removed the BISECT_START file before the other files, so for example if the process is killed after having removed this file but not the others, then we are in an inconsistent state.

In this inconsistent state, if "git bisect reset" is called (perhaps again), then it would checkout the "master" branch (because the BISECT_START file does not exists, but the BISECT_NAMES file still exists).

Show 12 quoted lines

> > diff --git a/git-bisect.sh b/git-bisect.sh
> > index 4bcbace..991b2ef 100755
> > --- a/git-bisect.sh
> > +++ b/git-bisect.sh
> > @@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ sq() {
> >  }
> >
> >  bisect_autostart() {
> > -	test -f "$GIT_DIR/BISECT_NAMES" || {
> > +	test -s "$GIT_DIR/BISECT_START" || {
>
> The reason you ignore an existing but empty BISECT_START file is...?

... that it should not happen, because this file is only written in "bisect_start" and there its content comes either from the current HEAD or from a previous not empty BISECT_START file.

We might add a check for an empty BISECT_START file and warn in this case that the file may have been corrupted, but that may be for another patch.

Thanks, Christian.