Re: [RFH] plumber's puzzle

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Apr 22, 2007, 23:03 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.0.98.0704221546160.9964@woody.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vps5wkph5.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

On Sun, 22 Apr 2007, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> 
> I should be happy that I figured out what is going on, but I am
> not very happy with this patch.

That actually looks like the right patch.

The "fflush() before fork()" thing is a real issue, and a real bug. Stdio is buffered, and yes, fork() will duplicate the buffer if not flushed.

Of course, I'm not 100% sure that is the right _place_ for the fflush() call. I wonder if we should just do the fflush() closer to the place that generates the data. As it is, we may have other things like that lurking.

Of course, delaying the fflush as long as possible is likely good for performance, so doing it just before the fork() (even if it may be ugly and somewhat unexpected at that point to have to do it) may just be the right thing regardless...

		Linus