Segfault on uninitialized git global allocator

[dtolnay]

The following code causes a segfault in patch_generated_with_delta_alloc.

fn main() {
    git2::Patch::from_buffers(
        "abc".as_bytes(),
        None,
        "abc".as_bytes(),
        None,
        None,
    );
}

I believe this is because git's global allocator never gets initialized. A workaround is to add libgit2_sys::init() at the top of main. Should this be necessary, or should the safe git2 binding be calling init in more places?

[ehuss]

I think generally the safe git2 side usually calls init from every function that needs it. The way libgit2 handles allocation was changed recently, so now a significantly larger portion of the API should be calling init.

I wonder if there should be any concern about the performance impact of calling init everywhere.

[alexcrichton]

Yes git2 should always handle initialization. I don't think it'll be much of a performance issue but we can always handle it if it does.