bug#10470: MSYS: race in directory access?

[Stefano Lattarini]

Hi Peter.

On 01/10/2012 12:15 AM, Peter Rosin wrote:
> Peter Rosin skrev 2012-01-10 00:07:
>> Hi!
>>
>> distcheck-configure-flags-am.test fails on MSYS.
>
Is this failure consistently reproducible, or racy?  If racy, do you have
an estimate of its frequency?

>> I think the cause is
>> that some process lingers with CWD in the _build directory which some
>> other process tries to remove.  On MSYS, it's not possible to remove a
>> directory that is "in use" like that.
>>
>> Ugly patch coming up shortly.
> 
> As promised.
> 
> Cheers,
> Peter
> 
> From 8ba67ab9885c8987d7a09ad650bcda69675b8285 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: Peter Rosin <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:14:08 +0100
> Subject: [PATCH] dist: try to avoid race on MSYS when removing the distdir
> 
> Fixes automake bug#10470.
> 
> lib/am/distdir.am (am__remove_distdir): Add a short sleep to make old
> processes release the directory before an attempt to remove it is made.
> On MSYS, it is not possible to remove a directory that is "in use".
> ---
>  lib/am/distdir.am |    5 ++++-
>  1 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/lib/am/distdir.am b/lib/am/distdir.am
> index d8c1a89..e56d33b 100644
> --- a/lib/am/distdir.am
> +++ b/lib/am/distdir.am
> @@ -22,10 +22,13 @@ if %?TOPDIR_P%
>  distdir = $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION)
>  top_distdir = $(distdir)
>  
> +## On MSYS (1.0.17) it is not possible to remove a directory that is
> +## in use, hence the sleep call, which gives processes time to exit
> +## and "release" the directory before it is removed.
>  am__remove_distdir = \
>    { test ! -d "$(distdir)" \
>      || { find "$(distdir)" -type d ! -perm -200 -exec chmod u+w {} ';' \
> -         && rm -fr "$(distdir)"; }; }
> +         && sleep 1 && rm -fr "$(distdir)"; }; }
>  am__post_remove_distdir = $(am__remove_distdir)
>  endif %?TOPDIR_P%
>  
Yuck.  As you've warned, this is really ugly indeed!  I don't think this change
is acceptable in its current form simply to pacify a minor[1] testsuite error.

Before going ahead, I'd like to have a better understanding of the reason of
the failure you are seeing[2] -- even better, a testcase that embodies this
understanding by making the issue consistently reproducible.

I will give a shot at this later or tomorrow, unless someone beats me.

Thanks,
  Stefano

-*-*-

[1] Two reasons for which I see the error as minor:
     - failing to remove the $(distdir) right away is not a serious error, just
       a minor annoyance, and easily fixed by a hand-issued "rm -rf";
     - IMHO, one shouldn't be using a "peculiar" system like MSYS to build real
       distribution tarballs anyway.

[2] Now that I think of it, my knee-jerk guess is that the "( sleep 1 ) &"
    put in configure by AM_SANITY_CHECK is the likely culprit.