Subject: [PATCH 2/3] ci: add build checking for side-effects in assert() calls

From: "Elijah Newren via GitGitGadget" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2025 00:20:51 +0000

From: Elijah Newren <[email-masked]>

It is a big no-no to have side-effects in an assertion, because if the
assert() is compiled out, you don't get that side-effect, leading to the
code behaving differently.  That can be a large headache to debug.

We have roughly 566 assert() calls in our codebase (my grep might have
picked up things that aren't actually assert() calls, but most appeared
to be).  All but 9 of them can be determined by gcc to be free of side
effects with a clever redefine of assert().  The current 9 appear to be
free of side effects to me as well, but are too complicated for a
compiler/linker to figure that since each assertion involves some kind
of function call.  Add a CI job which will find and report these
possibly problematic assertions, and have the job suggest to the user
that they replace these with BUG_IF_NOT() calls.

Example output from running:

```
ERROR: The compiler could not verify the following assert()
       calls are free of side-effects.  Please replace with
       BUG_IF_NOT() calls.
/home/newren/floss/git/diffcore-rename.c:1409
	assert(!dir_rename_count || strmap_empty(dir_rename_count));
/home/newren/floss/git/merge-ort.c:1645
			assert(renames->deferred[side].trivial_merges_okay &&
			       !strset_contains(&renames->deferred[side].target_dirs,
						path));
/home/newren/floss/git/merge-ort.c:794
	assert(omittable_hint ==
	       (!starts_with(type_short_descriptions[type], "CONFLICT") &&
		!starts_with(type_short_descriptions[type], "ERROR")) ||
	       type == CONFLICT_DIR_RENAME_SUGGESTED);
/home/newren/floss/git/merge-recursive.c:1200
	assert(!merge_remote_util(commit));
/home/newren/floss/git/object-file.c:2709
	assert(would_convert_to_git_filter_fd(istate, path));
/home/newren/floss/git/parallel-checkout.c:280
	assert(is_eligible_for_parallel_checkout(pc_item->ce, &pc_item->ca));
/home/newren/floss/git/scalar.c:244
	assert(have_fsmonitor_support());
/home/newren/floss/git/scalar.c:254
	assert(have_fsmonitor_support());
/home/newren/floss/git/sequencer.c:4968
		assert(!(opts->signoff || opts->no_commit ||
			 opts->record_origin || should_edit(opts) ||
			 opts->committer_date_is_author_date ||
			 opts->ignore_date));
```

Note that if there are possibly problematic assertions, not necessarily
all of them will be shown in a single run, because the compiler errors
may include something like "ld: ... more undefined references to
`not_supposed_to_survive' follow" instead of listing each individually.
But in such cases, once you clean up a few that are shown in your first
run, subsequent runs will show (some of) the ones that remain, allowing
you to iteratively remove them all.

Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <[email-masked]>
---
 Makefile                      |  4 ++++
 ci/check-unsafe-assertions.sh | 18 ++++++++++++++++++
 ci/run-static-analysis.sh     |  2 ++
 git-compat-util.h             |  6 ++++++
 4 files changed, 30 insertions(+)
 create mode 100755 ci/check-unsafe-assertions.sh

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 7315507381e..57774912f18 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -2261,6 +2261,10 @@ ifdef WITH_BREAKING_CHANGES
 	BASIC_CFLAGS += -DWITH_BREAKING_CHANGES
 endif
 
+ifdef CHECK_ASSERTION_SIDE_EFFECTS
+	BASIC_CFLAGS += -DCHECK_ASSERTION_SIDE_EFFECTS
+endif
+
 ifdef INCLUDE_LIBGIT_RS
 	# Enable symbol hiding in contrib/libgit-sys/libgitpub.a without making
 	# us rebuild the whole tree every time we run a Rust build.
diff --git a/ci/check-unsafe-assertions.sh b/ci/check-unsafe-assertions.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000..d66091efd22
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/check-unsafe-assertions.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+make CHECK_ASSERTION_SIDE_EFFECTS=1 >compiler_output 2>compiler_error
+if test $? != 0
+then
+    echo "ERROR: The compiler could not verify the following assert()" >&2
+    echo "       calls are free of side-effects.  Please replace with" >&2
+    echo "       BUG_IF_NOT() calls." >&2
+    grep undefined.reference.to..not_supposed_to_survive compiler_error \
+      | sed -e s/:[^:]*$// | sort | uniq | tr ':' ' ' \
+      | while read f l
+      do
+	printf "${f}:${l}\n  "
+	awk -v start="$l" 'NR >= start { print; if (/\);/) exit }' $f
+      done
+    exit 1
+fi
+rm compiler_output compiler_error
diff --git a/ci/run-static-analysis.sh b/ci/run-static-analysis.sh
index 0d51e5ce0e7..ae714e020ae 100755
--- a/ci/run-static-analysis.sh
+++ b/ci/run-static-analysis.sh
@@ -31,4 +31,6 @@ exit 1
 
 make check-pot
 
+${0%/*}/check-unsafe-assertions.sh
+
 save_good_tree
diff --git a/git-compat-util.h b/git-compat-util.h
index c3415ad7e0a..0aefd763751 100644
--- a/git-compat-util.h
+++ b/git-compat-util.h
@@ -1584,4 +1584,10 @@ static inline void *container_of_or_null_offset(void *ptr, size_t offset)
 	((uintptr_t)&(ptr)->member - (uintptr_t)(ptr))
 #endif /* !__GNUC__ */
 
+#ifdef CHECK_ASSERTION_SIDE_EFFECTS
+#undef assert
+extern int not_supposed_to_survive;
+#define assert(expr) ((void)(not_supposed_to_survive || (expr)))
+#endif /* CHECK_ASSERTION_SIDE_EFFECTS */
+
 #endif
-- 
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