Re: [PATCH v2 5/6] odb/source-files: avoid stat'ing already-known alternates

[Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>]

On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 01:36:35PM +0100, Christian Couder wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 23, 2026 at 2:48 PM Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> wrote:
> >
> > When adding alternates we first check whether the alternate exists
> > before checking whether we already know about it. This results in a
> > useless stat(3p) syscall in the case where we already track the
> > alternate.
> >
> > Reorder the logic so that we first check whether we know the alternate
> > already before checking whether its directory exists to avoid the
> > syscall.
> 
> Does avoiding the syscall means not printing the "object directory %s
> does not exist" error then, when we know the alternates but its
> directory was removed?

It depends. When trying to add an alternate that doesn't exist we'll
continue to print this error. But when such an alternate disappears
after we have already added it to the object database then we indeed
won't print this error anymore.

I don't think this really is a huge issue by itself, as it feels
sufficiently niche to not really matter, and the end result itself
wouldn't change. But let me know in case you disagree.

Patrick