[BUG] Race Condition in File Deletion Handling

[olddev94]

Project

vgrep

Description

The process_files() function in src/watcher.rs lines 301-313 has a time-of-check to time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition. A file could be deleted between the path.exists() check and the subsequent read_to_string() call, causing silent failures where deleted files remain in the index.

Error Message

No error message - silent failure to remove deleted files from index.

Debug Logs

System Information

- Bounty Version: 0.1.0
- OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
- Rust: 1.75+

Screenshots

No response

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start file watcher: vgrep watch
2. Create a script that rapidly creates and deletes files:

   while true; do
     echo "test" > /tmp/project/temp_file.rs
     rm /tmp/project/temp_file.rs
   done

3. Run the script while watcher is active
4. Observe that some deleted files may remain in the index

Expected Behavior

When a file read fails due to deletion:

1. Check if the file was deleted
2. If deleted, remove from index
3. Log the race condition for debugging

Actual Behavior

1. File deletion between check and read is silently ignored
2. Deleted file remains indexed
3. Searches may return results pointing to non-existent files

Additional Context

No response

[echobt]

Issue validated. The reported problem has been confirmed in the codebase. A Pull Request with the fix has been submitted: CortexLM/vgrep#22.