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Description of problem:  Usage of PyObject_ToStrOrNull() results in severe memory leakage. Somewhat widespread: "46 results in 20 files"

More information (with better formatting and presentation) here: https://github.com/rpm-software-management/createrepo_c/issues/230


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): All of them


How reproducible:  Always


Steps to Reproduce:

PYTHONMALLOC=malloc valgrind --tool=memcheck --leak-check=full --track-origins=yes --show-leak-kinds=definite --suppressions=../../valgrind-python.supp python -m pytest --verbose --color=yes tests/python/tests/test_package.py

(valgrind suppressions file available here) https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Misc/valgrind-python.supp

Actual results:

Valgrind reports memory leaks


Expected results:

Valgrind should not report memory leaks

@Ales This will also require an upstream release so that Katello can package the RPM for their users

Two PRs were created which address the specific problem mentioned here as well as several other memory leaks:

https://github.com/rpm-software-management/createrepo_c/pull/233
https://github.com/rpm-software-management/createrepo_c/pull/231

The impact is that on a patched system, Pulp's migration code which migrates RPMs and repositories from Pulp 2 to Pulp 3 went from using 20GB+ of RAM before, to using ~1GB of RAM after, to process around 300,000 RPMs through the Python APIs. So, it is a very significant impact.

Thanks for the PRs, both of them are now merged.

I have also created the needed upstream release version 0.16.2.

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory (createrepo_c bug fix and enhancement update), and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2021:1840