os: Open() makes two system call to open a file on windows

[pmezard]

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. Write a simple program calling os.Open and exiting. Run it on Windows while
monitoring it with procmon (or alternatively, read the code).

What is the expected output?

A single CreateFile system call.

What do you see instead?

Two CreateFile calls.

Which operating system are you using?

Windows 7

Which version are you using?  (run 'go version' or 'gccgo --version')

changeset:   19292:65546d299e5a
user:        Josh Bleecher Snyder <josharian@gmail.com>
date:        Wed Feb 26 12:25:13 2014 -0800
summary:     cmd/gc: fix bad checknil with ints on 32 bit compilers

Please provide any additional information below.

This is caused by Open() in file_windows.go calling openDir() first then openFile().
There is a brainman comment saying:

  // TODO(brainman): not sure about my logic of assuming it is dir first, then fall back to file

There is no way to avoid 2 system calls in all cases, but I think opening a file should
be tried before opening a directory. I do not recall having used the latter (but maybe
it is used internally). I have no concrete problem or benchmark about this.

Switching the calls, and returning the file error when both openFile and openDir fail
fixes the issue and pass all tests. I do not think openFile might succeed where openDir
did before. Reading:

  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363858(v=vs.85).aspx

The only place mentioning directory handle is the dwFlagsAndAttributes section, about
FILE_FLAG_BACKUP_SEMANTICS, which is never used by syscall.Open().

 I can submit a CL if you want.

[robpike]

Comment 1:

Labels changed: added repo-main, release-go1.3maybe, os-windows.

Owner changed to @alexbrainman.

Status changed to Accepted.

[robpike]

Comment 2:

Marked 1.3Maybe because it looks needless but safe and easy to fix.

[alexbrainman]

Comment 3:

patrick,
It sounds reasonable to change, but can you actually demonstrate your point with some
statistical data.
Can you change some large program that uses many files (cmd/go or godoc or ...) to count
"failed syscalls" for both scenarios (open file first against open directory first), and
tell us what the difference is. You should consider syscall is "failed" if openDir
failed while openFile succeeds.
Thank you
Alex

[pmezard]

Comment 4:

I added Stderr.Write([]byte("...")) before every return and between the two calls. Then
built everything again and ran "go install -a std" a couple of times for both
configurations, piping to "sort | uniq -c". The results, reordered by code flow.
Before:
-----
547   openDir succeeded
3593 openDir failed and fell back to openFile
3592 openFile succeeded
1       both failed
After:
----
3592 openFile succeeded
548   openFile failed and fell back
547   openDir succeeded
1       both failed
So, it trades 3593 failed openDir for 548 failed openFile.

[alexbrainman]

Comment 5:

Patrick,
Looks good to me. Please send your change as described here
http://golang.org/doc/contribute.html#Code_review. Thank you.
Alex

[pmezard]

Comment 6:

Done: https://golang.org/cl/70480044

[alexbrainman]

Comment 7:

Status changed to Started.

[rsc]

Comment 8:

The CL said "Fix issue" instead of "Fixes issue".

Status changed to Fixed.