[PATCH v3 2/3] git-compat-util: add NOT_CONSTANT macro and use it in atfork_prepare()

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 17, 2025, 23:53 UTC
Message-ID: <20250317235329.809302-3-gitster@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <20250317235329.809302-1-gitster@pobox.com>

Our hope is that the number of code paths that falsely trigger warnings with the -Wunreachable-code compilation option are small, and they can be worked around case-by-case basis, like we just did in the previous commit. If we need such a workaround a bit more often, however, we may benefit from a more generic and descriptive facility that helps document the cases we need such workarounds.

    Side note: if we need the workaround all over the place, it
    simply means -Wunreachable-code is not a good tool for us to
    save engineering effort to catch mistakes.  We are still
    exploring if it helps us, so let's assume that it is not the
    case.

Introduce NOT_CONSTANT() macro, with which, the developer can tell the compiler:

    Do not optimize this expression out, because, despite whatever
    you are told by the system headers, this expression should *not*
    be treated as a constant.

and use it as a replacement for the workaround we used that was somewhat specific to the sigfillset case. If the compiler already knows that the call to sigfillset() cannot fail on a particular platform it is compiling for and declares that the if() condition would not hold, it is plausible that the next version of the compiler may learn that sigfillset() that never fails would not touch errno and decide that in this sequence:

	errno = 0;
	sigfillset(&all)
	if (errno)
		die_errno("sigfillset");

the if() statement will never trigger. Marking that the value returned by sigfillset() cannot be a constant would document our intention better and would not break with such a new version of compiler that is even more "clever". With the marco, the above sequence can be rewritten:

	if (NOT_CONSTANT(sigfillset(&all)))
		die_errno("sigfillset");

which looks almost like other innocuous annotations we have, e.g. UNUSED.

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
---
 Makefile                         |  1 +
 compiler-tricks/not-a-constant.c |  2 ++
 git-compat-util.h                |  9 +++++++++
 meson.build                      |  1 +
 run-command.c                    | 12 +++++-------
 5 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 compiler-tricks/not-a-constant.c

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 97e8385b66..605e2d7f61 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -985,6 +985,7 @@ LIB_OBJS += compat/nonblock.o
 LIB_OBJS += compat/obstack.o
 LIB_OBJS += compat/terminal.o
 LIB_OBJS += compat/zlib-uncompress2.o
+LIB_OBJS += compiler-tricks/not-a-constant.o
 LIB_OBJS += config.o
 LIB_OBJS += connect.o
 LIB_OBJS += connected.o
diff --git a/compiler-tricks/not-a-constant.c b/compiler-tricks/not-a-constant.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..1da3ffc2f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/compiler-tricks/not-a-constant.c
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+#include <git-compat-util.h>
+int false_but_the_compiler_does_not_know_it_;
diff --git a/git-compat-util.h b/git-compat-util.h
index e283c46c6f..f6a149827b 100644
--- a/git-compat-util.h
+++ b/git-compat-util.h
@@ -1593,4 +1593,13 @@ static inline void *container_of_or_null_offset(void *ptr, size_t offset)
 	((uintptr_t)&(ptr)->member - (uintptr_t)(ptr))
 #endif /* !__GNUC__ */
 
+/*
+ * Prevent an overly clever compiler from optimizing an expression
+ * out, triggering a false positive when building with the
+ * -Wunreachable-code option. false_but_the_compiler_does_not_know_it_
+ * is defined in a compilation unit separate from where the macro is
+ * used, initialized to 0, and never modified.
+ */
+#define NOT_CONSTANT(expr) ((expr) || false_but_the_compiler_does_not_know_it_)
+extern int false_but_the_compiler_does_not_know_it_;
 #endif
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 0064eb64f5..373524dad2 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -249,6 +249,7 @@ libgit_sources = [
   'compat/obstack.c',
   'compat/terminal.c',
   'compat/zlib-uncompress2.c',
+  'compiler-tricks/not-a-constant.c',
   'config.c',
   'connect.c',
   'connected.c',
diff --git a/run-command.c b/run-command.c
index d527c46175..b74fd08056 100644
--- a/run-command.c
+++ b/run-command.c
@@ -516,14 +516,12 @@ static void atfork_prepare(struct atfork_state *as)
 	sigset_t all;
 
 	/*
-	 * Do not use the return value of sigfillset(). It is transparently 0
-	 * on some platforms, meaning a clever compiler may complain that
-	 * the conditional body is dead code. Instead, check for error via
-	 * errno, which outsmarts the compiler.
+	 * POSIX says sigfillset() can fail, but an overly clever
+	 * compiler can see through the header files and decide
+	 * it cannot fail on a particular platform it is compiling for,
+	 * triggering -Wunreachable-code false positive.
 	 */
-	errno = 0;
-	sigfillset(&all);
-	if (errno)
+	if (NOT_CONSTANT(sigfillset(&all)))
 		die_errno("sigfillset");
 #ifdef NO_PTHREADS
 	if (sigprocmask(SIG_SETMASK, &all, &as->old))

-- 
2.49.0-207-gc8924421c3