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Re: CVS rtag corrupting files
From: |
Larry Jones |
Subject: |
Re: CVS rtag corrupting files |
Date: |
Thu, 22 May 2003 17:29:35 -0400 (EDT) |
Ross Patterson writes [quoting me]:
> >
> > You mean there are four NULs at the beginning of the RCS file, just
> > before "head"?
>
> Yes. And I understand your disbelief, it's astounding to me as well.
It wasn't disbelief, just making sure I understood you correctly. I
wasn't completely sure whether you were talking about the RCS file or
the working file.
> > If so, given the way CVS creates and writes RCS files,
> > it is not possible for CVS code to be causing this problem;
>
> Hmm, it seems you're right - the code in rcs.c looks pretty straightforward,
> even given the caching interactions.
That's why I wanted to be sure it was the very beginning of the RCS
file. "head" is written as a literal string right after opening the
file, so there's no caching (or anything else) that could corrupt it.
> > it has to be
> > a bug in your C library or OS (on the server -- the client has nothing
> > to do with writing RCS files).
>
> That's kind of hard to believe, given that this server has lots of activity
> and this problem *only* shows up in the CVS repository, and then only when we
> run "cvs rtag". My first reaction was that it was an underlying-server
> problem, but the symptoms are very specific and they don't show up in any
> other files. Then again, as Holmes said, "When you have eliminated
> the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Under what other circumstances do you read and write that many files in
such a short time? My wild guess is that there's a subtle bug in the
kernel buffer cache, but it's just a wild guess.
> Problems? In Linux? Geez, next thing you'll tell me NFS is buggy too :-)
I firmly believe that *everything* is buggy. Some bugs are just more
noticable and/or annoying than others. :-)
-Larry Jones
He piqued my curiosity. -- Calvin