From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:58:53 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] make_absolute_path: Don't try to copy a string to itself
Message-ID: <7vpqptb976.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1300140128.4320.39.camel@bee.lab.cmartin.tk>

Carlos Martín Nieto <cmn@elego.de> writes:

>> I don't think it is a bad idea per-se to avoid a copy from the same memory
>> location into the same memory location, but independent of the necessity
>> of fixes at the low-level, shouldn't we fix the callers that do not check
>> if what they have is already absolute?
>
> If we'd like the semantics to be "whatever I had, I now know what the
> absolute path is" then we could make the check in the beginning of the
> function, to centralise the check. If the semantics should be "I don't
> have an absolute path, so I need to figure out what it is", then there
> should be a check before calling make_absolute_path() (the name suggests
> the second).

Good thinking, and I think the former semantics would be easier to use.

>  There is however the extra functionality the function offers, namely
> resolving links. It might be good to split it into two functions so each
> caller can specify what it wants.

Probably.