trace2: add macOS process ancestry tracing

In 353d3d77f4 (trace2: collect Windows-specific process information, 2019-02-22) Windows-specific process ancestry information was added as a data_json event to TRACE2. Furthermore in 2f732bf15e (tr2: log parent process name, 2021-07-21) similar functionality was added for Linux-based systems, using procfs. Teach Git to also log process ancestry on macOS using the sysctl with KERN_PROC to get process information (PPID and process name). Like the Linux implementation, we use the cmd_ancestry TRACE2 event rather than using a data_json event and creating another custom data point. Signed-off-by: Matthew John Cheetham <mjcheetham@outlook.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

Matthew John Cheetham committed Feb 13, 2026 at 19:54 UTC fd104ef15deb16fae9ed48ad548f1d7a40e17222
1 file changed +97
compat/darwin/procinfo.c new
+97
@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
1 +#include "git-compat-util.h"
2 +#include "strbuf.h"
3 +#include "strvec.h"
4 +#include "trace2.h"
5 +#include <sys/sysctl.h>
6 +
7 +/*
8 + * An arbitrarily chosen value to limit the depth of the ancestor chain.
9 + */
10 +#define NR_PIDS_LIMIT 10
11 +
12 +/*
13 + * Get the process name and parent PID for a given PID using sysctl().
14 + * Returns 0 on success, -1 on failure.
15 + */
16 +static int get_proc_info(pid_t pid, struct strbuf *name, pid_t *ppid)
17 +{
18 + int mib[4];
19 + struct kinfo_proc proc;
20 + size_t size = sizeof(proc);
21 +
22 + mib[0] = CTL_KERN;
23 + mib[1] = KERN_PROC;
24 + mib[2] = KERN_PROC_PID;
25 + mib[3] = pid;
26 +
27 + if (sysctl(mib, 4, &proc, &size, NULL, 0) < 0)
28 + return -1;
29 +
30 + if (size == 0)
31 + return -1;
32 +
33 + strbuf_addstr(name, proc.kp_proc.p_comm);
34 + *ppid = proc.kp_eproc.e_ppid;
35 +
36 + return 0;
37 +}
38 +
39 +/*
40 + * Recursively push process names onto the ancestry array.
41 + * We guard against cycles by limiting the depth to NR_PIDS_LIMIT.
42 + */
43 +static void push_ancestry_name(struct strvec *names, pid_t pid, int depth)
44 +{
45 + struct strbuf name = STRBUF_INIT;
46 + pid_t ppid;
47 +
48 + if (depth >= NR_PIDS_LIMIT)
49 + return;
50 +
51 + if (pid <= 0)
52 + return;
53 +
54 + if (get_proc_info(pid, &name, &ppid) < 0)
55 + goto cleanup;
56 +
57 + strvec_push(names, name.buf);
58 +
59 + /*
60 + * Recurse to the parent process. Stop if ppid not valid
61 + * or if we've reached ourselves (cycle).
62 + */
63 + if (ppid && ppid != pid)
64 + push_ancestry_name(names, ppid, depth + 1);
65 +
66 +cleanup:
67 + strbuf_release(&name);
68 +}
69 +
70 +void trace2_collect_process_info(enum trace2_process_info_reason reason)
71 +{
72 + struct strvec names = STRVEC_INIT;
73 +
74 + if (!trace2_is_enabled())
75 + return;
76 +
77 + switch (reason) {
78 + case TRACE2_PROCESS_INFO_STARTUP:
79 + push_ancestry_name(&names, getppid(), 0);
80 + if (names.nr)
81 + trace2_cmd_ancestry(names.v);
82 +
83 + strvec_clear(&names);
84 + break;
85 +
86 + case TRACE2_PROCESS_INFO_EXIT:
87 + /*
88 + * The Windows version of this calls its
89 + * get_peak_memory_info() here. We may want to insert
90 + * similar process-end statistics here in the future.
91 + */
92 + break;
93 +
94 + default:
95 + BUG("trace2_collect_process_info: unknown reason '%d'", reason);
96 + }
97 +}