x/sync/semaphore: Acquire should not wait for context to close when required weight is larger than size

[wilkice]

What version of Go are you using (go version)?

$ go version
go version go1.20.1 darwin/arm64

Does this issue reproduce with the latest release?

yes

What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?

go env Output

$ go env
GO111MODULE=""
GOARCH="arm64"
GOBIN=""
GOCACHE="/Users/darcy/Library/Caches/go-build"
GOENV="/Users/darcy/Library/Application Support/go/env"
GOEXE=""
GOEXPERIMENT=""
GOFLAGS=""
GOHOSTARCH="arm64"
GOHOSTOS="darwin"
GOINSECURE=""
GOMODCACHE="/Users/darcy/go/pkg/mod"
GONOPROXY=""
GONOSUMDB=""
GOOS="darwin"
GOPATH="/Users/darcy/go"
GOPRIVATE=""
GOPROXY="https://proxy.golang.org,direct"
GOROOT="/opt/homebrew/Cellar/go/1.20.1/libexec"
GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"
GOTMPDIR=""
GOTOOLDIR="/opt/homebrew/Cellar/go/1.20.1/libexec/pkg/tool/darwin_arm64"
GOVCS=""
GOVERSION="go1.20.1"
GCCGO="gccgo"
AR="ar"
CC="clang"
CXX="clang++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
GOMOD="/Users/darcy/code/temp/ccc/go.mod"
GOWORK=""
CGO_CFLAGS="-O2 -g"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-O2 -g"
CGO_FFLAGS="-O2 -g"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-O2 -g"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -arch arm64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/var/folders/2f/0m8mf47s50x4zfvsm3bxyn4r0000gn/T/go-build3257843051=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common"

What did you do?

https://go.dev/play/p/hqcrWEMRu-e

What did you expect to see?

This program should return immediately after compare request weight with size. For the request weight, 1000, is larger than size, 8. The request won't be fulfilled at any time.

source code: https://cs.opensource.google/go/x/sync/+/master:semaphore/semaphore.go;l=48-53;drc=43a5402ce75a95522677f77c619865d66b8c57ab

I think source code at line 51 should by removed

<-ctx.Done()

What did you see instead?

Waited 10 second before exit.

➜  ./myprogram  
error is  context deadline exceeded
10.001491166 seconds has passed

[bcmills]

This program should return immediately after compare request weight with size.

Why?

The documented semantics of Acquire are: “Acquire acquires the semaphore with a weight of n, blocking until resources are available or ctx is done.” Returning early for another reason would add yet another condition there.

Moreover, for callers that want the early-return behavior, it is easy enough to save the original n passed to NewWeighted and do the comparison on the caller side before calling Acquire.

[wilkice]

Acquire acquires the semaphore with a weight of n, blocking until resources are available or ctx is done

Yes, I agree this. If request weight is not larger than size, wait for resource or ctx is ok because there is chance for this request to be accepted.

But if the request weight is larger than size, this request won't be accepted at any time. So what's the point of waiting for ctx even when we know it already fails?

if n > s.size {
    // Don't make other Acquire calls block on one that's doomed to fail.
    s.mu.Unlock()
    <-ctx.Done()
    return ctx.Err()
}

[seankhliao]

fwiw, golang.org/x/sync/rate.Limiter.WaitN, which is similar to a semaphore will error on exceeding max size

https://pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/time/rate#Limiter.WaitN

[xiaohu-zhang]

I am very agree with darcy.If I did not set ctx WithTimeout , there will be a Memory leak. for example code: https://go.dev/play/p/roy3vs1s4OD sem.Acquire(ctx, 1000)will never return ,that will get a Memory leak. It is very dangerous

[ibrahimk9000]

line 51 <-ctx.Done() when using context.TODO() or context.Background() , it will block forever if weight > size

godoc WorkerPool example with sem.Acquire(ctx, 1) changed to sem.Acquire(ctx, 9) // GOMAXPROCS=8 https://go.dev/play/p/33E7JxU0zyh https://pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/sync/semaphore#example-package-WorkerPool