Junio C Hamano <gits...@pobox.com> writes: > I think you identified the problem and diagnosed it correctly, but I > find that the change proposed here introduces a severe layering > violation. The code is still calling what is called poll(), which > should not have such a broken semantics.
I only mentioned a piece of fact (i.e. "the code calls poll() after the patch"), but I guess I should have made it clear what makes that a bad thing. Future readers of the code in daemon.c are required to be aware of the limitation of some poll() emulation; they cannot "optimize" out and made the code unware of the (non-)existence of remaining children, for example. When the callsite uses poll(), those who know how poll() ought to work won't be. The reason why the xpoll() I mentioned as a possible alternative would be better is because they will learn why we do not use normal poll() there and why we maintain and pass live_children (and those who cut and paste without understanding the existing code _will_ copy the calling site of xpoll(), which will automatically copy the need to maintain the number of remaining children ;-).
