Re: [PATCH] builtin/gc: improve total_ram calculation for HAVE_BSD_SYSCTL

From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Jul 2, 2025, 15:23 UTC
Message-ID: <aGVO3ej7bEo5swih@pks.im>
In-Reply-To: <20250702144244.43858-1-carenas@gmail.com>

On Wed, Jul 02, 2025 at 07:42:44AM -0700, Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belón wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> In BSD systems other than macOS, since 9806f5a7bf (gc --auto:
> exclude base pack if not enough mem to "repack -ad", 2018-04-15),
> sysctl() use HW_PHYSMEM with the wrong size for the target.
> 
> Use the correct type for physical_memory on each option and make
> sure it is initialized, so it is safe to use even if sysctl() fails.

We don't use it though when sysctl(3) fails, do we? We only return `physical_memory` in case sysctl(3) returned zero, which indicates success. Which raises the question whether that function ever returns a zero value without writing the value to the pointer.

Not that it would really hurt to initialize the value, but I found this explanation to be puzzling.

> While at it, add a cast to the returned value for consistency.

Okay. It's not really needed, but other branches do it, as well.

Patrick