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

Re: [PATCH 2/3] run-command: Be more informative about what failed

From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date
Jan 31, 2013, 16:24 UTC
Message-ID
<7vfw1hiami.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To
<1359597666-10108-3-git-send-email-sboyd@codeaurora.org>
Stephen Boyd <sboyd@codeaurora.org> writes:
Show 7 quoted lines
> While debugging an error with verify_signed_buffer() the error
> messages from run-command weren't very useful:
>
>  error: cannot create pipe for gpg: Too many open files
>  error: could not run gpg.
>
> because they didn't indicate *which* pipe couldn't be created.

For the message emitted here with your update (or without for that matter) to be useful, it has to hold that there is a single leaker, that leaker fails in this codepath, and that there is nobody else involved. Otherwise, you may be able to tell that one caller could not create its stdin, but the reason it couldn't may be because somebody else consumed all the available file descriptors.

I am not opposed to this change per-se, but I am not sure that saying "stdin" etc. makes the message more useful for the purpose of debugging.

> For example, the above error now prints:
>
>  error: cannot create stderr pipe for gpg: Too many open files
>  error: could not run gpg.

I'd prefer to see these names spelled out (e.g. "standard error") in any case.

Thanks.
> Signed-off-by: Stephen Boyd <sboyd@codeaurora.org>
> ---
Show 44 quoted lines
>  run-command.c | 8 ++++++--
>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/run-command.c b/run-command.c
> index 12d4ddb..016dd05 100644
> --- a/run-command.c
> +++ b/run-command.c
> @@ -274,6 +274,7 @@ int start_command(struct child_process *cmd)
>  	int need_in, need_out, need_err;
>  	int fdin[2], fdout[2], fderr[2];
>  	int failed_errno = failed_errno;
> +	char *str;
>  
>  	/*
>  	 * In case of errors we must keep the promise to close FDs
> @@ -286,6 +287,7 @@ int start_command(struct child_process *cmd)
>  			failed_errno = errno;
>  			if (cmd->out > 0)
>  				close(cmd->out);
> +			str = "stdin";
>  			goto fail_pipe;
>  		}
>  		cmd->in = fdin[1];
> @@ -301,6 +303,7 @@ int start_command(struct child_process *cmd)
>  				close_pair(fdin);
>  			else if (cmd->in)
>  				close(cmd->in);
> +			str = "stdout";
>  			goto fail_pipe;
>  		}
>  		cmd->out = fdout[0];
> @@ -318,9 +321,10 @@ int start_command(struct child_process *cmd)
>  				close_pair(fdout);
>  			else if (cmd->out)
>  				close(cmd->out);
> +			str = "stderr";
>  fail_pipe:
> -			error("cannot create pipe for %s: %s",
> -				cmd->argv[0], strerror(failed_errno));
> +			error("cannot create %s pipe for %s: %s",
> +				str, cmd->argv[0], strerror(failed_errno));
>  			errno = failed_errno;
>  			return -1;
>  		}
Previous: Stephen BoydNext: Stephen Boyd
Message 8 of 13 in “GPG running out of pipes fixes”
  1. 0/3 GPG running out of pipes fixesStephen Boyd, Jan 31, 2013
  2. 1/3 gpg: Close stderr once finished with it in verify_signed_buffer()Stephen Boyd, Jan 31, 2013
  3. Jeff KingJan 31, 2013
  4. Stephen BoydJan 31, 2013
  5. 1/3 gpg: Close stderr once finished with it in verify_signed_buffer()Stephen Boyd, Jan 31, 2013
  6. Jeff KingJan 31, 2013
  7. 2/3 run-command: Be more informative about what failedStephen Boyd, Jan 31, 2013
  8. Junio C HamanoJan 31, 2013
  9. Stephen BoydJan 31, 2013
  10. Jeff KingJan 31, 2013
  11. Junio C HamanoJan 31, 2013
  12. 3/3 gpg: Allow translation of more error messagesStephen Boyd, Jan 31, 2013
  13. Jonathan NiederJan 31, 2013

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.