On Mon, Aug 28, 2023 at 09:15:30AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > In the current code before this patch, the rev.subject_prefix member > holds one of: > > * hardcoded "PATCH" in BSS (i.e. fmt_patch_subject_prefix) > * hardcoded "RFC PATCH" in BSS when "--rfc" is given > * value given to command line arg "--subject-prefix=<prefix>" > * value given to format.subjectprefix > > and the last one should be freed. We are removing the second one > and replacing it with whatever we will do when adding this feature > so we should be able to make it freeable. And I do not think it is > hard to make the third one freeable. > > I wonder how far we can go to plug this leak by simply > > - making subject_prefix_callback() xstrdup() its arg and free the > current value, unless it is the same pointer as > fmt_patch_subject_prefix, before assigning a new value, and > > - making "format.subjectprefix" take the value in a temporary > variable from git_config_string(), call > subject_prefix_callback(), and free that temporary. I am not super familiar with this code, so could easily be missing something here, but I think that you can do this in a more direct way like so: --- 8< --- diff --git a/builtin/log.c b/builtin/log.c index 854216ee9c..f1c6c08f75 100644 --- a/builtin/log.c +++ b/builtin/log.c @@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ static const char *fmt_patch_subject_prefix = "PATCH"; static int fmt_patch_name_max = FORMAT_PATCH_NAME_MAX_DEFAULT; static const char *fmt_pretty; static int format_no_prefix; +static char *subject_prefix; static const char * const builtin_log_usage[] = { N_("git log [<options>] [<revision-range>] [[--] <path>...]"), @@ -362,6 +363,7 @@ static void cmd_log_init(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix, static int cmd_log_deinit(int ret, struct rev_info *rev) { release_revisions(rev); + free(subject_prefix); return ret; } @@ -1463,32 +1465,27 @@ static int keep_callback(const struct option *opt, const char *arg, int unset) return 0; } -static int subject_prefix = 0; - static int subject_prefix_callback(const struct option *opt, const char *arg, int unset) { + struct rev_info *revs = opt->value; BUG_ON_OPT_NEG(unset); - subject_prefix = 1; - ((struct rev_info *)opt->value)->subject_prefix = arg; + + revs->subject_prefix = arg; + return 0; } static int rfc_callback(const struct option *opt, const char *arg, int unset) { - /* - * The subject_prefix in rev_info is not heap-allocated except in this - * specific case, so there is no obvious place to free it. Since this - * value is retained for the lifetime of the process, we just - * statically allocate storage for it here. - */ - static char *prefix; + struct rev_info *revs = opt->value; + BUG_ON_OPT_NEG(unset); BUG_ON_OPT_ARG(arg); - free(prefix); - prefix = xstrfmt("RFC %s", ((struct rev_info *)opt->value)->subject_prefix); - return subject_prefix_callback(opt, prefix, unset); + free(subject_prefix); + subject_prefix = xstrfmt("RFC %s", revs->subject_prefix); + return subject_prefix_callback(opt, subject_prefix, unset); } static int numbered_cmdline_opt = 0; --- >8 --- since we already have cmd_log_deinit(), which currently just calls `release_revisions()` and then propagates a return code. We can't foist freeing the subject_prefix into release_revisions, since (as noted above), sometimes the value will point into the program's BSS. But the only time we care about free()-ing subject_prefix is when we xstrdup() a new value into it, and the only place we do that is in rfc_callback(). Thanks, Taylor