Re: Alternative approach to the git config NULL value checking patches..

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 10, 2008, 22:47 UTC
Message-ID: <7v7ihce8ex.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vbq6oe98y.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 19 quoted lines

> But as you seem to imply, it might make sense to equate
>
> 	[some-random-section]
>         	some-random-variable
>
> to
>
> 	[some-random-section]
>         	some-random-variable = ""
>
> for variables that cannot possibly have any meaningful "bool"
> semantics.  This third class of variables is a possible benefit
> your patch brings in.  The code can be lax for these variables.
>
> However, it would make things inconsistent ("this variable is
> bool and the above two forms mean completely opposite things,
> while that variable is not bool and they mean the same thing").
> I am just having a hard time convincing myself that this little
> detail does not matter.

Having said all that, it might be an option to change your patch slightly to say:

	const char config_true[] = "true";

IOW, make

	[section]
        	var

equivalent to

	[section]
		var = "true"

Existing codepaths that deal with variables that were originally bool but now bool + more might get upset if we did so, though. An example I could think of offhand was "d7f4633 (Make AutoCRLF ternary variable" but that one is safe.