gitk management of git diff-tree processes

[David Holmer <dholmer@persistentsystems.com>]

I find that if I am in gitk browsing through commits, gitk seems to be
spawning a git diff-tree process in order to display the changes and
patch file list in the bottom panes.

I have a certain commit that adds a very large amount of data to my
repository (1.2 GB). Understandably, the git diff-tree process that
tries to display the changes in this commit takes a VERY long time to
run (e.g. churns indefinitely).

The issue is that I find that if I simply browse past this commit (e.g.
using up/down arrows), gitk starts up a git diff-tree process and leaves
it running. As many times as I pass the commit (e.g. while looking at
changes before and after this commit), I end up with multiple processes
all running and my CPUs quickly go to 100%. Furthermore, even if I exit
gitk, all the git diff-tree processes keep running unless I manually
kill them.

Perhaps gitk could kill the git diff-tree process it spawns if its
output is no longer needed (e.g. user browses to a different commit, or
gitk exits).

Thank you,
David

$ ps -aF
UID        PID  PPID  C    SZ   RSS PSR STIME TTY          TIME CMD
david    23635     1 18 88365 102892  0 10:49 pts/1    00:01:11 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23640     1 18 88368 102908  1 10:49 pts/1    00:01:10 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23644     1 16 88368 102904  0 10:49 pts/1    00:01:04 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23646     1 16 88367 102916  0 10:49 pts/1    00:01:04 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23652     1 17 88365 102892  1 10:49 pts/1    00:01:07 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23656     1 17 88368 102920  1 10:49 pts/1    00:01:06 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23660     1 16 88369 102932  0 10:49 pts/1    00:01:03 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23664     1 16 88368 102908  0 10:49 pts/1    00:01:03 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23670     1 16 88368 102904  1 10:49 pts/1    00:01:03 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23680     1 17 88365 102896  1 10:49 pts/1    00:01:05 git diff-tree -r -p --textconv -C --cc --no-commit-id -U3 8df50645c4cadf26dc951540e0c713b0826247b8
david    23851 10444  0   692  1032   0 10:56 pts/1    00:00:00 ps -aF

$ git version
git version 1.6.4.4

-- 
David G. Holmer, Ph.D.
dholmer@persistentsystems.com
CTO and Co-Founder
Persistent Systems, LLC
www.persistentsystems.com
Office: 212-561-5895
Mobile: 650-533-4964
Fax: 212-202-3625