git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

[PATCH v2] git tag --contains : avoid stack overflow

From
Stepan Kasal <kasal@ucw.cz>
Date
Apr 23, 2014, 07:53 UTC
Message-ID
<20140423075325.GA7268@camelia.ucw.cz>
In-Reply-To
<20140417215817.GA822@sigill.intra.peff.net>
From: Jean-Jacques Lafay <jeanjacques.lafay@gmail.com>

In large repos, the recursion implementation of contains(commit, commit_list) may result in a stack overflow. Replace the recursion with a loop to fix it.

This problem is more apparent on Windows than on Linux, where the stack is more limited by default.

See also this thread on the msysGit list:
	https://groups.google.com/d/topic/msysgit/FqT6boJrb2g/discussion
[jes: re-written to imitate the original recursion more closely]
Thomas Braun pointed out several documentation shortcomings.

Tests are run only if ulimit -s is available. This means they cannot be run on Windows.

Signed-off-by: Jean-Jacques Lafay <jeanjacques.lafay@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Tested-by: Stepan Kasal <kasal@ucw.cz>
---
Hello,
I have found out that "ulimit -s" does not work on Windows.
Adding this as a prerequisite, we will skip the test there.
On Thu, Apr 17, 2014 at 05:32:38PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> So we can bump the depth further; probably 4000 is enough for any system
> to fail with a 64k stack. The deeper we make it, the longer it takes to
> run the test, though. At 4000, my machine seems to take about 300ms to
> run it. That's may be OK.
Consequently, we can accept this proposal.
Stepan Kasal
 builtin/tag.c  | 90 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
 t/t7004-tag.sh | 23 +++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 98 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)
diff --git a/builtin/tag.c b/builtin/tag.c
index 6c7c6bd..f344002 100644
--- a/builtin/tag.c
+++ b/builtin/tag.c
@@ -80,11 +80,19 @@ static int in_commit_list(const struct commit_list *want, struct commit *c)
 	return 0;
 }
 
-static int contains_recurse(struct commit *candidate,
+enum contains_result {
+	CONTAINS_UNKNOWN = -1,
+	CONTAINS_NO = 0,
+	CONTAINS_YES = 1,
+};
+
+/*
+ * Test whether the candidate or one of its parents is contained in the list.
+ * Do not recurse to find out, though, but return -1 if inconclusive.
+ */
+static enum contains_result contains_test(struct commit *candidate,
 			    const struct commit_list *want)
 {
-	struct commit_list *p;
-
 	/* was it previously marked as containing a want commit? */
 	if (candidate->object.flags & TMP_MARK)
 		return 1;
@@ -92,26 +100,78 @@ static int contains_recurse(struct commit *candidate,
 	if (candidate->object.flags & UNINTERESTING)
 		return 0;
 	/* or are we it? */
-	if (in_commit_list(want, candidate))
+	if (in_commit_list(want, candidate)) {
+		candidate->object.flags |= TMP_MARK;
 		return 1;
+	}
 
 	if (parse_commit(candidate) < 0)
 		return 0;
 
-	/* Otherwise recurse and mark ourselves for future traversals. */
-	for (p = candidate->parents; p; p = p->next) {
-		if (contains_recurse(p->item, want)) {
-			candidate->object.flags |= TMP_MARK;
-			return 1;
-		}
-	}
-	candidate->object.flags |= UNINTERESTING;
-	return 0;
+	return -1;
 }
 
-static int contains(struct commit *candidate, const struct commit_list *want)
+/*
+ * Mimicking the real stack, this stack lives on the heap, avoiding stack
+ * overflows.
+ *
+ * At each recursion step, the stack items points to the commits whose
+ * ancestors are to be inspected.
+ */
+struct stack {
+	int nr, alloc;
+	struct stack_entry {
+		struct commit *commit;
+		struct commit_list *parents;
+	} *stack;
+};
+
+static void push_to_stack(struct commit *candidate, struct stack *stack)
+{
+	int index = stack->nr++;
+	ALLOC_GROW(stack->stack, stack->nr, stack->alloc);
+	stack->stack[index].commit = candidate;
+	stack->stack[index].parents = candidate->parents;
+}
+
+static enum contains_result contains(struct commit *candidate,
+		const struct commit_list *want)
 {
-	return contains_recurse(candidate, want);
+	struct stack stack = { 0, 0, NULL };
+	int result = contains_test(candidate, want);
+
+	if (result != CONTAINS_UNKNOWN)
+		return result;
+
+	push_to_stack(candidate, &stack);
+	while (stack.nr) {
+		struct stack_entry *entry = &stack.stack[stack.nr - 1];
+		struct commit *commit = entry->commit;
+		struct commit_list *parents = entry->parents;
+
+		if (!parents) {
+			commit->object.flags |= UNINTERESTING;
+			stack.nr--;
+		}
+		/*
+		 * If we just popped the stack, parents->item has been marked,
+		 * therefore contains_test will return a meaningful 0 or 1.
+		 */
+		else switch (contains_test(parents->item, want)) {
+		case CONTAINS_YES:
+			commit->object.flags |= TMP_MARK;
+			stack.nr--;
+			break;
+		case CONTAINS_NO:
+			entry->parents = parents->next;
+			break;
+		case CONTAINS_UNKNOWN:
+			push_to_stack(parents->item, &stack);
+			break;
+		}
+	}
+	free(stack.stack);
+	return contains_test(candidate, want);
 }
 
 static void show_tag_lines(const unsigned char *sha1, int lines)
diff --git a/t/t7004-tag.sh b/t/t7004-tag.sh
index 143a8ea..db82f6d 100755
--- a/t/t7004-tag.sh
+++ b/t/t7004-tag.sh
@@ -1423,4 +1423,27 @@ EOF
 	test_cmp expect actual
 '
 
+ulimit_stack="ulimit -s 64"
+test_lazy_prereq ULIMIT 'bash -c "'"$ulimit_stack"'"'
+
+>expect
+# we require bash and ulimit, this excludes Windows
+test_expect_success ULIMIT '--contains works in a deep repo' '
+	i=1 &&
+	while test $i -lt 4000
+	do
+		echo "commit refs/heads/master
+committer A U Thor <author@example.com> $((1000000000 + $i * 100)) +0200
+data <<EOF
+commit #$i
+EOF"
+		test $i = 1 && echo "from refs/heads/master^0"
+		i=$(($i + 1))
+	done | git fast-import &&
+	git checkout master &&
+	git tag far-far-away HEAD^ &&
+	bash -c "'"$ulimit_stack"' && git tag --contains HEAD >actual" &&
+	test_cmp expect actual
+'
+
 test_done
-- 
1.9.2.msysgit.0.158.g49754fb
Previous: Jeff KingNext: Johannes Schindelin
Message 7 of 24 in “git tag --contains : avoid stack overflow”
  1. git tag --contains : avoid stack overflowStepan Kasal, Apr 16, 2014
  2. Jeff KingApr 16, 2014
  3. Johannes SchindelinApr 17, 2014
  4. Jeff KingApr 17, 2014
  5. Johannes SchindelinApr 17, 2014
  6. Jeff KingApr 17, 2014
  7. git tag --contains : avoid stack overflowStepan Kasal, Apr 23, 2014
  8. Johannes SchindelinApr 23, 2014
  9. Stepan KasalApr 23, 2014
  10. Junio C HamanoApr 23, 2014
  11. Jeff KingApr 23, 2014
  12. Junio C HamanoApr 23, 2014
  13. Jeff KingApr 23, 2014
  14. Junio C HamanoApr 23, 2014
  15. Stepan KasalApr 24, 2014
  16. Stepan KasalApr 24, 2014
  17. Jeff KingApr 25, 2014
  18. Andreas SchwabSep 20, 2014
  19. Jeff KingSep 23, 2014
  20. Andreas SchwabSep 23, 2014
  21. Junio C HamanoSep 23, 2014
  22. Stepan KasalApr 23, 2014
  23. Jeff KingApr 23, 2014
  24. Johannes SchindelinApr 23, 2014

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.