[M3devel] modula3 fork and virtual timer

[Jay K]

/mnt/d/dev2/cm3-5.8.6/m3-libs/libm3/src/os/POSIX/ProcessPosixCommon.m3


PROCEDURE Create_ForkExec:

.
.
.
    (* Turn off the interval timer (so it won't be running in child). *)

    nit := Utime.struct_itimerval {
             it_interval := Utime.struct_timeval {0, 0},
             it_value    := Utime.struct_timeval {0, 0}};
    IF Utime.setitimer(Utime.ITIMER_VIRTUAL, nit, oit) < 0 THEN
      <* ASSERT FALSE *>
    END;
 .
 .

 .

  fork()

 .
 .

    (* Enable scheduler. *)
    Scheduler.EnableSwitching ();

    (* Restore previous virtual timer. *)
    IF Utime.setitimer(Utime.ITIMER_VIRTUAL, oit, nit) < 0 THEN
      <* ASSERT FALSE *>
    END;


 This code has a number of problems.

 - It looks thread-unsafe -- another thread could be changing the timer.



 - The comments are wrong in multiple ways.
   The timer doesn't have to be turned off to not run in the child.
   Timers except alarm() are not inherited by child.
   It goes ahead and enables in the child anyway. Granted, after EnableSwitching,
   which also enables it!


 - Doesn't work on Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

  You get back -1/EINVAL.


 - Is probably specific to user threads?



- Fails to put a useful message in the assert other than "FALSE"



Proposals:

 1. Remove it.
 2. Make it check for and ignore EINVAL, and possibly WSL, and not then enable in child.
 3. Change it to get in parent and set in child if enabled.

 4. Move it to Thread.AtFork in user threads. Though again, not clearly needed there.


 5. Consider that fork+exec should work from C/C++ code in a process that is using Modula3.


 6. Research posix_spawn and use it more.

 We can probably just use it and forget about any system that lacks it.

Thoughts?

 WSL can be detected by searching for "Microsoft" in /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease or /proc/version.


 Or we can just accept -1/EINVAL here for any OS.



 - Jay

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