Re: [PATCH] Allocate msg only after fatal checks to avoid leaks

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jun 14, 2025, 15:40 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqcyb672mc.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <3993AF96-E03D-46AB-B18E-8E6C1108EC45@smail.nju.edu.cn>

lidongyan <502024330056@smail.nju.edu.cn> writes:

Show 11 quoted lines

> Alex via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes：
>> 
>> From: jinyaoguo <guo846@purdue.edu>
>> 
>> In parse_reuse_arg, we previously called xmalloc and strbuf_init
>> before resolving the ref and reading the object, leading to a
>> leaked msg on die() paths. This change moves the allocation of
>
> A memory leak on the die() path shouldn't be considered a real leak,
> right? Since the OS will clean up all memory once the process
> terminates, explicitly freeing msg isn't necessary in this case.

It may not matter in practice, but I think the leak checking machinery like sanitizers would still complain, so I view efforts on plugging such leaks in the error code paths more about decluttering the leak checker output to help us spot the real leaks.