history: close COMMIT_EDITMSG before launching the editor

builtin/history.c static int fill_commit_message(struct repository *repo, · line 87

The function is extremely sloppy beyond words X-<. Thanks for taking the first step to clean it up.

* It calls git_path_commit_editmsg() to obtain a constant pathname into "const char *path", but then the part that leads to this file stream leak does not even use that "path" constant. It makes two independent calls to git_path_commit_editmsg()!

* The function first calls write_file_buf() to the file, which is a convenience function when you have something you need to write upfront and just want to write it and be done with it.

* And then the unclosed file stream you just fixed.

What is surprising is that all of this was created in a single commit. I suspected that this part that does fopen() to leak the file stream was a later addition than the initial write_file_buf(), which should have been critiqued with "once you want to do your custom writing that is more than "I have this block of memory, write it into file", you should rewrite write_file_buf() call and roll it into your own custom writing", but that is not the case.

So taking the opportunity to clean things up, how about doing it this way intead?

----- >8 ---------- >8 ---------- >8 -----

Subject: [PATCH] history: streamline message preparation and plug file stream leak

An early part of fill_commit_mmessage() function uses write_file_buf() to write out what was prepared in a strbuf, which is primarily meant for use by callers that have their own message prepared fully and called as the last thing to flush it to the destination file.

However, the function then opens a file stream in append mode to further write into it. It may have been understandable if this was a later addition, but it seems it came from a single commit, d205234c (builtin/history: implement "reword" subcommand, 2026-01-13), which is somewhat puzzling, but anyway...

Just open the file stream upfront for writing, write the message the function has in the strbuf, and then keep writing whatever it wants to write to the same open file stream.

And do not forget to close the stream. We are about to pass the resulting file to an external editor, and on some systems, notably Windows, you are not supposed to keep a file open while expecting another program to access it.

---
 builtin/history.c | 15 ++++++++-------
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

index 8dcb9a6046..a882ad82e5 100644
@@ -41,11 +41,6 @@ static int fill_commit_message(struct repository *repo,
 		  " empty message aborts the commit.\n");
 	struct wt_status s;
 
-	strbuf_addstr(out, default_message);
-	strbuf_addch(out, '\n');
-	strbuf_commented_addf(out, comment_line_str, hint, action, comment_line_str);
-	write_file_buf(path, out->buf, out->len);
-
 	wt_status_prepare(repo, &s);
 	FREE_AND_NULL(s.branch);
 	s.ahead_behind_flags = AHEAD_BEHIND_QUICK;

@@ -57,14 +52,20 @@ static int fill_commit_message(struct repository *repo,
 	s.whence = FROM_COMMIT;
 	s.committable = 1;
 
-	s.fp = fopen(git_path_commit_editmsg(), "a");
+	s.fp = fopen(path, "w");
 	if (!s.fp)
-		return error_errno(_("could not open '%s'"), git_path_commit_editmsg());
+		return error_errno(_("could not open '%s'"), path);
+
+	strbuf_addstr(out, default_message);
+	strbuf_addch(out, '\n');
+	strbuf_commented_addf(out, comment_line_str, hint, action, comment_line_str);
+	fwrite(out.buf, 1, out.len, s.fp);
 
 	wt_status_collect_changes_trees(&s, old_tree, new_tree);
 	wt_status_print(&s);
 	wt_status_collect_free_buffers(&s);
 	string_list_clear_func(&s.change, change_data_free);
+	fclose(s.fp);
 
 	strbuf_reset(out);
 	if (launch_editor(path, out, NULL)) {

2.55.0-rc2-165-g3249676ba5