Re: fetching packs and storing them as packs

Shawn Pearce [off-list ref] writes:

So a reader-writer lock is preferred over
a non-locking solution such as I posted in
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/30288 ?

If you mean these two in your message to be "solution":

   So the receive-pack process becomes:

     a. Create temporary pack file in $GIT_DIR/objects/pack_XXXXX.
     b. Create temporary index file in $GIT_DIR/objects/index_XXXXX.
     c. Write pack and index.
     d. Move pack to $GIT_DIR/objects/pack/...
     e. Move index to $GIT_DIR/objects/pack...
     f. Update refs.
     g. Arrange for new pack and index to be considered active.

   And the repack -a -d process becomes:

     1. List all active packs and store in memory.
     2. Repack only loose objects and objects contained in active packs.
     3. Move new pack and idx into $GIT_DIR/objects/pack/...
     4. Arrange for new pack and idx to be considered active.
     5. Delete active packs found by step #1.

I am not so sure how it solves anything at all.

The race is about this sequence:

      - git-receive-pack is spawned from remove git-send-pack;
        it lets "index-pack --stdin --fatten" to keep the pack.

      - index-pack does its magic and moves the pack and idx
        to their final location;

      - "repack -a -d" is started by somebody else; it first
        remembers all the existing packs; it does the usual
        repacking-into-one.

      - git-receive-pack that invoked the index-pack waits for
        index-pack to finish, and then updates the refs;

      - "repack -a -d" is done repacking; removes the packs
        that existed when it checked earlier.

Now, I am not sure what your plan to "arrange for new pack and
idx to be considered active" is.  Care to explain?

There is a tricky constraints imposed on us by (arguably broken)
commit walkers in that it relies on the (arguably broken)
sha1_file.c:sha1_pack_name() interface, so naming historical
ones $GIT_OBJECT_DIR/pack/hist-X{40}.pack would not work; we
would need to fix commit walkers for that first.