From: Michael Haggerty Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 07:35:55 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] string_list API: document what "sorted" means. Message-ID: <505975DB.7070802@alum.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <7va9wnnt5h.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> On 09/18/2012 07:21 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Michael Haggerty writes: > >> If another sort order is needed, then we will either have to audit >> existing string_list users to make sure that they don't rely on strcmp() >> ordering, or we will have to implement strcmp() ordering *plus* the new >> ordering. > > What I was envisioning was to pass in an optional custom comparison > when you instantiate a string_list object. Existing callers that > rely on (or can live with, because they do not care about the exact > order) the default order will continue to use the byte-value ordering, > so there is no need for auditing. Only the new callers that want > different ordering would set custom comparison routine. > > But now I wrote it down, I realize that there is no _harm_ in > documenting "we sort in byte-value order, so expect iterations on > sorted string list to give them in that order to you" at all. > > So let's go with your documentation patch as-is. > >> It's not that I'm unwilling to implement 2; it's just that I still don't >> see any advantage to doing so before there is a demonstrated need for it. > > As I said, I have this suspicion that the lack of demonstrated need > is largely because the existing code that do _not_ use string-list > don't do so because the interface is limited, so the argument is > sort of self-fulfilling. I've been looking for places in the code where string_list can be used, so hopefully I'll get a feeling for what new functionality will increase its applicability. Now that my string_list enhancements are in master, I will start trickling in patches to convert other code to using string_list when it seems to benefit code length and/or understandability. Michael -- Michael Haggerty mhagger@alum.mit.edu http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/