Subject: Re: Gitweb giving me some warnings in Apache's error_log

From: Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:14:52 -0700 (PDT)

Mark A Rada <[email-masked]> writes:

> It doesn't seem to cause any other problems, but I don't know if it is
> significant or not.
> 
> [Fri Aug  7 08:51:13 2009] gitweb.cgi: Variable "$project_maxdepth"
> may be unavailable at /var/www/private/gitweb/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi line
> 2296.
> [Fri Aug  7 08:51:13 2009] gitweb.cgi: Variable "$projectroot" may be
> unavailable at /var/www/private/gitweb/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi line 2304.
> 
> 
> Apache 2.2.12/ mod_perl 2.04/ perl 5.8.8

>>From perldiag(1) manpage:

  Variable "%s" may be unavailable

    (W closure) An inner (nested) anonymous subroutine is inside a
    named subroutine, and outside that is another subroutine; and the
    anonymous (innermost) subroutine is referencing a lexical variable
    defined in the outermost subroutine.  For example:

      sub outermost { my $a; sub middle { sub { $a } } }

    If the anonymous subroutine is called or referenced (directly or
    indirectly) from the outermost subroutine, it will share the
    variable as you would expect.  But if the anonymous subroutine is
    called or referenced when the outermost subroutine is not active,
    it will see the value of the shared variable as it was before and
    during the *first* call to the outermost subroutine, which is
    probably not what you want.

    In these circumstances, it is usually best to make the middle
    subroutine anonymous, using the "sub {}" syntax.  Perl has
    specific support for shared variables in nested anonymous
    subroutines; a named subroutine in between interferes with this
    feature.

The warning is about 'wanted' anonymous subroutine passed to
File::Find::find.  The "middle" subroutine is git_get_projects_list,
and the "outermost" is mod_perl / ModPerl::Registry request loop.

We can't make git_get_projects_list anonymous, but anonymous
subroutine is not called or referenced outside git_get_projects_list,
nor it is called or referenced outside mod_perl request/event loop.

This warning is harmless... but I do not know how to silence it.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git