Re: [PATCH v2 4/8] refs: unregister reference stores from "chdir_notify"

[Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2026 at 01:02:23PM -0500, Justin Tobler wrote:
> On 26/06/15 03:56PM, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
> > When creating reference stores we register them with the "chdir_notify"
> > subsystem. This is required because some of the paths we track may be
> > relative paths, so we have to reparent them in case the current working
> > directory changes.
> > 
> > But while we register the reference stores, we never unregister them.
> > This can have multiple outcomes:
> > 
> >   - For a repository's main reference database we essentially keep the
> >     pointer alive. We never free that database, either, and our leak
> >     checker doesn't notice because it's still registered.
> > 
> >   - For submodule and worktree reference databases we do eventually free
> >     them in `repo_clear()`, so we may keep pointers to free'd memory
> >     registered. We never notice though as we don't tend to chdir around
> >     in the middle of the process.
> > 
> > We never noticed either of these symptoms, but they are obviously bad.
> > 
> > Partially fix those issues by unregistering the reference stores when
> > releasing them. The leak of the main reference database will be fixed in
> > a subsequent commit.
> > 
> > Note that this requires us to use `chdir_notify_register()` instead of
> > `chdir_notify_reparent()`, as there is no infrastructure to unregister the
> > latter. It ultimately doesn't matter much though: in a subsequent commit
> > we'll drop this infrastructure completely. We merely require this step
> > here so that we can fix the memory leaks ahead of time.
> 
> Since this version of the series dropped the last patch which stopped
> using `chdir_notify_reparent()`, does the log message here need to be
> updated?

True, will do.

Patrick