integer and floats as keys may cause mnesia_locker to crash the node on < OTP-24.3.3

[onno-vos-dev]

Describe the bug
When trying to insert two keys into a table in a single transaction where one key is 1 and the other key is 1.0 mnesia_locker explodes and causes the node to go down.

To Reproduce

  {ok, _} = application:ensure_all_started(mnesia),
  Tab = testing_set_table,
  StoreType = disc_copies,
  TabDef =
    [{type, set},
     {attributes, [key, non_key, data1, data2]},
     {load_order, 0},
     {index, []},
     {storage_properties, []},
     {record_name, test_record}],
  {atomic, ok} = mnesia:create_table(Tab, [{StoreType, [node()]} | TabDef]),
  mnesia:transaction(fun() ->
                        mnesia:write(Tab, {test_record, 1, 1, 1, 1}, write),
                        mnesia:write(Tab, {test_record, 1.0, 2, 2, 2}, write)
                     end).

Causes the following stacktrace:

 ** FATAL ** mnesia_locker crashed: {function_clause,
                                     [{mnesia_locker,set_lock,
                                       [{tid,234,<0.107.0>},
                                        {testing_set_table,1.0},
                                        write,
                                        [{{testing_set_table,1},
                                          write,
                                          [{write,{tid,234,<0.107.0>}}]}]],
                                       [{file,"mnesia_locker.erl"},
                                        {line,262}]},
                                      {mnesia_locker,grant_lock,5,
                                       [{file,"mnesia_locker.erl"},
                                        {line,353}]},
                                      {mnesia_locker,try_lock,6,
                                       [{file,"mnesia_locker.erl"},
                                        {line,297}]},
                                      {mnesia_locker,loop,1,
                                       [{file,"mnesia_locker.erl"},
                                        {line,162}]},
                                      {mnesia_sp,init_proc,4,
                                       [{file,"mnesia_sp.erl"},{line,34}]},
                                      {proc_lib,init_p_do_apply,3,
                                       [{file,"proc_lib.erl"},{line,226}]}]} state: [<0.525.0>]

This is unexpected since the following code snippet works as expected and produces two distinct records in the DB. The key difference here being that the two records are written in separate transactions.

  {ok, _} = application:ensure_all_started(mnesia),
  Tab = testing_set_table,
  StoreType = disc_copies,
  TabDef =
    [{type, set},
     {attributes, [key, non_key, data1, data2]},
     {load_order, 0},
     {index, []},
     {storage_properties, []},
     {record_name, test_record}],
  {atomic, ok} = mnesia:create_table(Tab, [{StoreType, [node()]} | TabDef]),
  {atomic, ok} = mnesia:transaction(fun() -> mnesia:write(Tab, {test_record, 1, 1, 1, 1}, write) end),
  {atomic, ok} = mnesia:transaction(fun() -> mnesia:write(Tab, {test_record, 1.0, 2, 2, 2}, write) end),
  {atomic, [{test_record, 1, 1, 1, 1}]} = mnesia:transaction(fun() -> mnesia:read(Tab, 1) end),
  {atomic, [{test_record, 1.0, 2, 2, 2}]} = mnesia:transaction(fun() -> mnesia:read(Tab, 1.0) end).

Expected behavior
The node doesn't go down

Affected versions
The OTP versions that are affected by this bug:

• 23.3.4.9
• 24.2.1

Additional context
It seems it was fixed as part of: 8988ef4 as this issue no longer presents itself since that commit (Tested with: 24.3.4.5 and 25.1).

Perhaps a test could be added at least which prevents this sort of bug from re-occurring if the mnesia locker is changed in the future as it's not clear that this bug was intentionally fixed?

[dgud]

This was a known bug see #3109.
If this was fixed it was unintentionally :-)
I'll investigate and add a testcase to confirm if that is the case.

[onno-vos-dev]

Thank you @dgud for confirming it was unintentionally fixed 😄 I didn't find the issue that you linked but great that you found it! The module to replicate it seems to have been lost and the linked issue to https://bugs.erlang.org/browse/ERL-50 links back to Github so can't view it there either. Hopefully the snippet I provide helps. 👍

[dgud]

It still is an bad idea to mix integers and floats as keys in erlang, which is why the issue have been lingering for so long.
So you should probably fix that in your code.

Erlangs problematic float, int issue example:

4> lists:sort([0,0.0]).
[0,0.0]
5> lists:sort([0.0,0]).
[0.0,0]

[onno-vos-dev]

I agree for sure that it's a bad idea and to be clear we're not mixing these as keys :-) It however appeared on a property based test where we compare Postgres vs Mnesia results hence the report :-)

[dgud]

Nope this still is not solved, it just doesn't crash as before.
We need an option to ordered_set ets tables to have the same sort order as maps.
Ping @KennethL (erts task).