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#75322
SAFE_ALLOCA assumed to root Lisp_Objects/SSDATA(string)
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> From: Gerd Möllmann <gerd.moellmann <at> gmail.com>
> Cc: pipcet <at> protonmail.com, 75322 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Helmut Eller
> <eller.helmut <at> gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 04 Jan 2025 08:17:34 +0100
>
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> writes:
>
> > The current code in callproc.c assumes that GC cannot run while we are
> > parked in posix_spawn or vfork. Is that assumption false with MPS?
> > If so, what would trigger GC during that time?
>
> Okay, so it's safe with the old GC, I assume. Do you know if it is done
> with an inhibit_garbage_collection?
No, without. Unless posix_spawn could somehow call back to us in a
way that posix_spawn will later return and resume running (as opposed
to via a fatal signal), how could GC happen?
> Not that we run into the trap that somewhere on the way to the
> actual fork maybe_quit is called which can GC and so on, like we had
> it in the regexp engine a while back.
This can be established by examining the code, right?
> For MPS, I don't know for sure. I have seen in passing while git
> grepping in their repo recently, that they write something about forking
> and child processes, but I don't know what they do. Maybe someone having
> read the code can answer that. (Added Helmut in CC).
We are talking about vfork, not fork. In our case, the forked process
runs a completely separate program, in most cases not even Emacs, so MPS
has no bearing on that, I think.
> > Another question is about the global Lisp variables in 'globals'. For
> > example, Vprocess_environment actually globals.f_Vprocess_environment.
> > Is this large struct protected from GC, i.e. can GC ever decide that
> > process-environment is not used and free it? If it's protected, where
> > and how is it protected? And if it is protected, then any members of
> > the list that is the value of process-environment are also protected
> > and cannot be freed by GC.
> >
> > If 'globals' is not protected, I think we should protect it, no?
>
> process-environment is a DEFVAR_LISP, and is root in both GCs via the
> staticpro mechanism (staticvec array).
OK, so it's impossible that some member of the process-environment's
list will be GCed, right? AFAIU, Pip was considering a situation
where some of these member strings are GCed, and then subroutines of
posix_spawn use a bad address, to explain the error message Ihor
reported. This seems impossible because process-environment is
staticpro'd, right?
This bug report was last modified 147 days ago.
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