mc quits with excessive audible I/O loads

[cosoleto]

Hello,

Since commit a931ff73ccecbe5c0938b110e56f62570146409a

Author: Slava Zanko <slavazanko@…>
Date: Mon Oct 5 13:15:30 2009 +0300

Ticket #1617: ownership of files ~/.mc

that changes how mc saves config files, when you quit mc or mcedit you can get noise due to seeking at least on systems with non-silent disk drive (I own a WD Raptor). In spite of config files size. I think this is a bug, as well as a regression.

I got the time to see that the function mc_config_new_or_override_file() is called more times with the same filename and removing O_SYNC in mc_open() mades the operation silent to me. Maybe there isn't a good combination of things.

From mc_config_new_or_override_file():

fd = mc_open (ini_path, O_WRONLY | O_TRUNC | O_SYNC, 0);

[...]

for (written_data = data, total_written = len;

(cur_written = mc_write (fd, (const void *) written_data, total_written)) > 0;
written_data += cur_written, total_written -= cur_written) {

open sequence while mc quits:
open("/home/fra/.mc/ini", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9
open("/home/fra/.mc/ini", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9
open("/home/fra/.mc/ini", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9
open("/home/fra/.mc/panels.ini", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9
open("/home/fra/.mc/ini", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9
open("/home/fra/.mc/history", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9
open("/home/fra/.mc/history", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9
open("/home/fra/.mc/history", O_WRONLY|O_TRUNC|O_SYNC) = 9

[andrew_b]

Please don't modify ticket if you don't know exactly what you do.

[andrew_b]

Created 2541_save_setup branch. Parent: master.
Initial changeset:5fe608706c33deb59883822b656d1c4829770efd

[cosoleto]

Thanks for taking care of this bug report (and sorry for my previous mistake with "component" bug tracker field). I applied locally your patch. Anyway, a single low-level write() call with O_SYNC flag enabled looks enough to trigger the non-nice seek sound and so I wonder whether you think to change there something.

[andrew_b]

OK, we discussed O_SYNC flag usage and decided remove it.

Please review 2541_save_setup branch and vote for it.

[cosoleto]

I am not sure about correctness of new save path to '.cache' directory. My idea of cache is what the program can recreate easily based on user usage of a program, not based directly on user input data. In my opinion, deleting the '~.cache' directory should be only to save space or so, not to delete history, panel config, file positions...

[andrew_b]

Merged to master.
changeset:fcfa76be3d315f23dd5c2b282234f9d9fc39b69a

git log --pretty=oneline 417d550..fcfa76b

[andrew_b]

Created 2541_save_setup_stable branch (parent: 4.7.5-stable)
Initial changeset:db0cc809fccdb32c91e8c868cc8efaa5bb142409

[andrew_b]

Merged to 4.7.5-stable.
changeset:109a6fb7b1da53af53f0bde08ef6e228ca472fe6

git log --pretty=oneline fcec787..109a6fb