range-diff: add configurable memory limit for cost matrix

When comparing large commit ranges (e.g., 250,000+ commits), range-diff
attempts to allocate an n×n cost matrix that can exhaust available
memory. For example, with 256,784 commits (n = 513,568), the matrix
would require approximately 256GB of memory (513,568² × 4 bytes),
causing either immediate segmentation faults due to integer overflow or
system hangs.

Add a memory limit check in get_correspondences() before allocating the
cost matrix. This check uses the total size in bytes (n² × sizeof(int))
and compares it against a configurable maximum, preventing both
excessive memory usage and integer overflow issues.

The limit is configurable via a new --max-memory option that accepts
human-readable sizes (e.g., "1G", "500M"). The default is 4GB for 64 bit
systems and 2GB for 32 bit systems. This allows comparing ranges of
approximately 32,000 (16,000) commits - generous for real-world use cases
while preventing impractical operations.

When the limit is exceeded, range-diff now displays a clear error
message showing both the requested memory size and the maximum allowed,
formatted in human-readable units for better user experience.

Example usage:
  git range-diff --max-memory=1G branch1...branch2
  git range-diff --max-memory=500M base..topic1 base..topic2

This approach was chosen over alternatives:
- Pre-counting commits: Would require spawning additional git processes
  and reading all commits twice
- Limiting by commit count: Less precise than actual memory usage
- Streaming approach: Would require significant refactoring of the
  current algorithm

This issue was previously discussed in:
https://lore.kernel.org/git/RFC-cover-v2-0.5-00000000000-20211210T122901Z-avarab@gmail.com/

Acked-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: Paulo Casaretto <pcasaretto@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
This commit is contained in:
Paulo Casaretto
2025-08-29 16:02:54 +00:00
committed by Junio C Hamano
parent f814da676a
commit 00727249ec
5 changed files with 44 additions and 4 deletions

View File

@@ -717,6 +717,7 @@ static void show_diff_of_diff(struct rev_info *opt)
struct range_diff_options range_diff_opts = {
.creation_factor = opt->creation_factor,
.dual_color = 1,
.max_memory = RANGE_DIFF_MAX_MEMORY_DEFAULT,
.diffopt = &opts
};