check-attr and check-ignore have the potential to deadlock callers
which do not read back the output in real-time.  For example, if a
caller writes N paths out and then reads N lines back in, it risks
becoming blocked on write() to check-*, and check-* is blocked on
write back to the caller.  Somebody has to buffer; the pipe buffers
provide some leeway, but they are limited.

Thanks to Peff for pointing this out:

    http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/220534

Signed-off-by: Adam Spiers <g...@adamspiers.org>
---
 Documentation/git-check-attr.txt   |  5 +++++
 Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt |  5 +++++
 Documentation/git.txt              | 16 +++++++++-------
 3 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-check-attr.txt b/Documentation/git-check-attr.txt
index 5abdbaa..a7be80d 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-check-attr.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-check-attr.txt
@@ -56,6 +56,11 @@ being queried and <info> can be either:
 'set';;                when the attribute is defined as true.
 <value>;;      when a value has been assigned to the attribute.
 
+Buffering happens as documented under the `GIT_FLUSH` option in
+linkgit:git[1].  The caller is responsible for avoiding deadlocks
+caused by overfilling an input buffer or reading from an empty output
+buffer.
+
 EXAMPLES
 --------
 
diff --git a/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt 
b/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
index 7e3cabc..8e1f7ab 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-check-ignore.txt
@@ -81,6 +81,11 @@ not.  (Without this option, it would be impossible to tell 
whether the
 absence of output for a given file meant that it didn't match any
 pattern, or that the output hadn't been generated yet.)
 
+Buffering happens as documented under the `GIT_FLUSH` option in
+linkgit:git[1].  The caller is responsible for avoiding deadlocks
+caused by overfilling an input buffer or reading from an empty output
+buffer.
+
 EXIT STATUS
 -----------
 
diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
index 6a875f2..eecdb15 100644
--- a/Documentation/git.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git.txt
@@ -808,13 +808,15 @@ for further details.
 
 'GIT_FLUSH'::
        If this environment variable is set to "1", then commands such
-       as 'git blame' (in incremental mode), 'git rev-list', 'git log',
-       and 'git whatchanged' will force a flush of the output stream
-       after each commit-oriented record have been flushed.   If this
-       variable is set to "0", the output of these commands will be done
-       using completely buffered I/O.   If this environment variable is
-       not set, Git will choose buffered or record-oriented flushing
-       based on whether stdout appears to be redirected to a file or not.
+       as 'git blame' (in incremental mode), 'git rev-list', 'git
+       log', 'git check-attr', 'git check-ignore', and 'git
+       whatchanged' will force a flush of the output stream after
+       each commit-oriented record have been flushed.  If this
+       variable is set to "0", the output of these commands will be
+       done using completely buffered I/O.  If this environment
+       variable is not set, Git will choose buffered or
+       record-oriented flushing based on whether stdout appears to be
+       redirected to a file or not.
 
 'GIT_TRACE'::
        If this variable is set to "1", "2" or "true" (comparison
-- 
1.8.2.1.342.gfa7285d

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