From: Alex Riesen Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:54:14 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH 6/9] difftool: replace system call with Git::command_noisy Message-ID: In-Reply-To: On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 15:48, Tim Henigan wrote: > On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 6:50 AM, Alex Riesen wrote: >> On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 03:48, David Aguilar wrote: >>> Is this no longer a concern?  Does Git.pm need a similar portability >>> caveat, or  does it avoid the problem altogether since it uses fork() >>> + exec() + waitpid()?  (if this is true then it implies that this >>> change is fine). > > I need to spend more time testing this.  On Windows, I have tested > with msysgit but not cygwin.  Was ActiveState Perl used with cygwin > git? Yes, it is even stated in the commentary. As far as I know, there is only one installation where a cygwin-compiled Git is used with the ActiveState Perl (mine. I believe we would have heard if there were others - it is an extremely annoying combination). >> It _might_ work. Cygwin kind of has fork(2), it even works (kind of: >> it is a *very* expensive thing to do). There are also other ifs and >> whens, but it is worth a test. It's a nice clean up to have. > > Even it fork(2) is expensive, in this case it seems reasonable. Given > the time needed to spawn the diff tool, the fork(2) time seems > negligible. Not Cygwin's fork. They really do a deep copy of parent process. But actually, I misunderstood. The Perl used was of ActiveState origin. So the code in question is not affected by Cygwin at all. I have no idea how usable fork(2) of ActiveState Perl is. Even if it is bad, I won't be really affected, I very seldom use the difftool, and I believe I never used it on that particular system. I try test the patch in the next days. I'll tell if something is completely broken.