Re: [PATCH] rerere: release lockfile in non-writing functions

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

There's a bug in builtin/am.c in which we take a lock on
MERGE_RR recursively. But rather than fix am.c, this patch
fixes the confusing interface from rerere.c that caused the
bug. Read on for the gory details.

The setup_rerere() function both reads the existing MERGE_RR
file, and takes MERGE_RR.lock. In the rerere() and
rerere_forget() functions, we end up in write_rr(), which
will then commit the lock file.

But for functions like rerere_clear() that do not write to
MERGE_RR, we expect the caller to have handled
setup_rerere(). That caller would then need to release the
lockfile, but it can't; the lock struct is local to
rerere.c.

For builtin/rerere.c, this is OK. We run a single rerere
operation and then exit immediately, which has the side
effect of rolling back the lockfile.

But in builtin/am.c, this is actively wrong. If we run "git
am -3 --skip", we call setup-rerere twice without releasing
the lock:

  1. The "--skip" causes us to call am_rerere_clear(), which
     calls setup_rerere(), but never drops the lock.

  2. We then proceed to the next patch.

  3. The "--3way" may cause us to call rerere() to handle
     conflicts in that patch, but we are already holding the
     lock. The lockfile code dies with:

     BUG: prepare_tempfile_object called for active object

Thanks.  I've been re-acquainting with the internals of rerere and
agree with your approach to this issue.

Let's merge this before -rc1.