Re: pg_dump: fix memory leak

On 2025-Aug-29, Daniel Gustafsson wrote:

> > On 28 Aug 2025, at 16:14, m(dot)korotkov(at)postgrespro(dot)ru wrote:
> >
> > I have found a potential memory leak in src/bin/pg_dump/dumputils.c
> > in the function generate_restrict_key(). Memory is allocated to the
> > ret pointer if pg_strong_random returns false, and this leads to a
> > memory leak. I have replaced the allocation to avoid this leak.
>
> This is not actually a leak since the application will terminate
> immediately if a restrict key cannot be generated. If you inspect the
> callsites you will see this pattern:
>
> if (!restrict_key)
> restrict_key = generate_restrict_key();
> if (!restrict_key)
> pg_fatal("could not generate restrict key");

Hmm, this begs the question -- why do we make generate_restrict_key()
return NULL in that case? Maybe we should redefine its contract to be
that it either returns a valid key, or it calls pg_fatal(). Then
callers don't have to worry about it.

--
Álvaro Herrera Breisgau, Deutschland — https://www.EnterpriseDB.com/