From 9984741f78d46386023d8302a23f3bdfc8349a2b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: "google-labs-jules[bot]"
 <161369871+google-labs-jules[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 18:43:56 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] perf(bar): use stack allocation for status bar text

Optimizes `drawstatusbar` by allocating the status text buffer on the stack
instead of the heap. This avoids `malloc`/`free` overhead on every status bar
update (which can happen frequently).

- Uses `char buf[1024]` (matching `stext` global size) for the fast path.
- Falls back to `malloc` only if the text exceeds the buffer size.
- Checks against `sizeof(buf)` to prevent overflows.

Co-authored-by: paperbenni <15818888+paperbenni@users.noreply.github.com>
---
 .jules/bolt.md |  3 +++
 bar.c          | 10 ++++++++--
 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 .jules/bolt.md

diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..1d04f7ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+## 2026-02-05 - Masked Global Variables in C
+**Learning:** The global variable `stext` is masked by a function argument of the same name in `drawstatusbar(..., char *stext)`. This requires careful inspection of variable scope when optimizing, as `sizeof(stext)` yields different results (pointer size vs array size) depending on the scope.
+**Action:** Always verify variable declarations and scope before applying size-based optimizations or `sizeof` checks in C codebases.
diff --git a/bar.c b/bar.c
index 8476144a..95ba42ba 100644
--- a/bar.c
+++ b/bar.c
@@ -56,8 +56,12 @@ int drawstatusbar(Monitor *m, int bh, char *stext) {
     char *text;
     char *p;
 
+    char buf[1024];
+
     len = strlen(stext) + 1;
-    if (!(text = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * len))) {
+    if (len < sizeof(buf)) {
+        text = buf;
+    } else if (!(text = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * len))) {
         die("malloc");
     }
     p = text;
@@ -194,7 +198,9 @@ int drawstatusbar(Monitor *m, int bh, char *stext) {
     }
 
     drw_setscheme(drw, statusscheme);
-    free(p);
+    if (p != buf) {
+        free(p);
+    }
 
     return ret;
 }