Re: [PATCH v2] compat/bswap.h: simplify MSVC endianness detection

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Nov 10, 2020, 14:21 UTC
Message-ID: <20201110142122.GA1311261@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20201110023620.GH6252@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 02:36:20AM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> > > Modern MSVC or Windows versions don't support big-endian, so it's
> > > unnecessary to consider architectures when using it.
> > 
> > This made me wonder if we support any non-modern versions (which would
> > be negatively impacted).
> 
> I'm pretty sure we don't.  As I said, we're using several C99 features
> and that version precedes the C99 standard (and 1999).

Your response was much more thorough than I anticipated. What I was really going for in the commit message was just laying out "modern" a bit more clearly, like:

  No version of MSVC or Windows has supported a big-endian platform
  since the mid-90's. Git wouldn't build with these pre-C99 compilers
  these days anyway, so we can assume that MSVC is always little-endian.

Show 5 quoted lines

> I'm fine leaving the commit message as it stands, given the brevity of
> the patch and that in the technology field, the affected versions are
> not in any way "modern," but of course I wouldn't object to a reroll.
> It's fine, should that happen, to include any of this email in the
> commit message.

I often find that the briefer the patch, the more I need to revisit the assumptions of the author (myself included!). :)

But I am also OK either way; when commit messages are insufficient, I often go back to the list archive to get more details, and now it's well documented here.

-Peff