commit 70e24186c08a125a8714df0e3f3ce10fa7b071f1
author Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> Fri Mar 13 20:03:02 2020 +0000
committer Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Fri Mar 13 13:06:47 2020 -0700
tree eb08c50b10cb7a274ca3ceb2cb0b48c1ef3a56e5
parent 65bf820d0ee050ba6a0c8908ff1d5f58d7c7131e

t6022, t6046: fix flaky files-are-updated checks

Several tests wanted to verify that files were actually modified by a
merge, which it would do by checking that the mtime was updated.  In
order to avoid problems with the merge completing so fast that the mtime
at the beginning and end of the operation was the same, these tests
would first set the mtime of a file to something "old".  This "old"
value was usually determined as current system clock minus one second,
truncated to the nearest integer.  Unfortunately, it appears the system
clock and filesystem clock are different and comparing across the two
runs into race problems resulting in flaky tests.

From https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14392975/timestamp-accuracy-on-ext4-sub-millsecond:

    date will call the gettimeofday system call which will always return
    the most accurate time available based on the cached kernel time,
    adjusted by the CPU cycle time if available to give nanosecond
    resolution. The timestamps stored in the file system however, are
    only based on the cached kernel time. ie The time calculated at the
    last timer interrupt.

and from https://apenwarr.ca/log/20181113:

    Does mtime get set to >= the current time?

    No, this depends on clock granularity. For example, gettimeofday()
    can return times in microseconds on my system, but ext4 rounds
    timestamps down to the previous ~10ms (but not exactly 10ms)
    increment, with the surprising result that a newly-created file is
    almost always created in the past:

      $ python -c "
      import os, time
      t0 = time.time()
      open('testfile', 'w').close()
      print os.stat('testfile').st_mtime - t0
      "

      -0.00234484672546

So, instead of trying to compare across what are effectively two
different clocks, just avoid using the system clock.  Any new updates to
files have to give an mtime at least as big as what is already in the
file, so we could define "old" as one second before the mtime found in
the file before the merge starts.  But, to avoid problems with leap
seconds, ntp updates, filesystems that only provide two second
resolution, and other such weirdness, let's just pick an hour before the
mtime found in the file before the merge starts.

Also, clarify in one test where we check the mtime of different files
that it really was intentional.  I totally forgot the reasons for that
and assumed it was a bug when asked.

Reported-by: SZEDER Gábor <szeder.dev@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>