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[PATCH 1/2] Windows: Work around intermittent failures in mingw_rename

From
Johannes Sixt <j.sixt@viscovery.net>
Date
Apr 20, 2009, 08:01 UTC
Message-ID
<49EC2BE1.9080200@viscovery.net>
From: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 08:49:59 +0200

We have replaced rename() with a version that can rename a file to a destination that already exists. Nevertheless, many users, the author included, observe failures in the code that are not reproducible.

The theory is that the failures are due to some other process that happens to have opened the destination file briefly at the wrong moment. (And there is no way on Windows to delete or replace a file that is currently open.) The most likely candidate for such a process is a virus scanner. The failure is more often observed while there is heavy git activity (for example while the test suite is running or during a rebase operation).

We work around the failure by retrying the rename operation if it failed due to ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED. The retries are delayed a bit: The first only by giving up the time slice, the next after the minimal scheduling granularity, and if more retries are needed, then we wait some non-trivial amount of time with exponential back-off.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
---
 Steffen, Dscho,
 this is slightly different from the version that is currently 4msysgit:
 I removed the warning that was printed when a retry was attempted.
 -- Hannes
 compat/mingw.c |   21 +++++++++++++++++++--
 1 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/compat/mingw.c b/compat/mingw.c
index 4b37d93..74eae20 100644
--- a/compat/mingw.c
+++ b/compat/mingw.c
@@ -978,7 +978,9 @@ int mingw_connect(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *sa, size_t sz)
 #undef rename
 int mingw_rename(const char *pold, const char *pnew)
 {
-	DWORD attrs;
+	DWORD attrs, gle;
+	int tries = 0;
+	static const int delay[] = { 0, 1, 10, 20, 40 };

 	/*
 	 * Try native rename() first to get errno right.
@@ -988,10 +990,12 @@ int mingw_rename(const char *pold, const char *pnew)
 		return 0;
 	if (errno != EEXIST)
 		return -1;
+repeat:
 	if (MoveFileEx(pold, pnew, MOVEFILE_REPLACE_EXISTING))
 		return 0;
 	/* TODO: translate more errors */
-	if (GetLastError() == ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED &&
+	gle = GetLastError();
+	if (gle == ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED &&
 	    (attrs = GetFileAttributes(pnew)) != INVALID_FILE_ATTRIBUTES) {
 		if (attrs & FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY) {
 			errno = EISDIR;
@@ -1001,10 +1005,23 @@ int mingw_rename(const char *pold, const char *pnew)
 		    SetFileAttributes(pnew, attrs & ~FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY)) {
 			if (MoveFileEx(pold, pnew, MOVEFILE_REPLACE_EXISTING))
 				return 0;
+			gle = GetLastError();
 			/* revert file attributes on failure */
 			SetFileAttributes(pnew, attrs);
 		}
 	}
+	if (tries < ARRAY_SIZE(delay) && gle == ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED) {
+		/*
+		 * We assume that some other process had the source or
+		 * destination file open at the wrong moment and retry.
+		 * In order to give the other process a higher chance to
+		 * complete its operation, we give up our time slice now.
+		 * If we have to retry again, we do sleep a bit.
+		 */
+		Sleep(delay[tries]);
+		tries++;
+		goto repeat;
+	}
 	errno = EACCES;
 	return -1;
 }
-- 
1.6.3.rc1.989.ga175e.dirty
Next: Johannes Schindelin
Message 1 of 2 in “Windows: Work around intermittent failures in mingw_rename”
  1. 1/2 Windows: Work around intermittent failures in mingw_renameJohannes Sixt, Apr 20, 2009
  2. Johannes SchindelinApr 20, 2009

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