Re: [PATCH 3/6] revert: fix buffer overflow in insn sheet parser

Junio C Hamano wrote:

[...]

Yes, that works, too. All I was trying to say was that the description in the patch I quoted didn't make sense to me, since it included a mention of a buffer overflow without giving any explanation of what it was talking about. I don't actually care in this case whether it is fixed by mentioning which patch this is testing the fix from or by squashing the two patches (though the latter certainly seems reasonable).

Incidentally, Ram might wonder why I fuss so much about commit messages. It's actually very simple --- I think of them as part of the code. Suppose someone discovers a regression was introduced by such-and-such part of the patch 1.7.7 -> 1.7.8, but at first glance it is not clear whether that code change was supposed to have any effect on the behavior of the code at all. Such a person is likely to make mistakes in fixing it, right? So after getting the right behavior, patch authors spend a few extra minutes to make sure the code is intuitive to humans, too, and this includes making sure the rationale description is clear.

Just like the code for the computer, this is very much something that isn't always going to be right the first time and sometimes takes some debugging. So, sorry for the fuss, but I hope it helps.

Jonathan