From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 18:39:34 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Optimize common pattern of alloc_ref from string
Message-ID: <7vskwo3ct5.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20080511080709.GA6971@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> But really my main worry is that now we have _two_ functions which
> allocate refs, so if "struct ref" ever grows a new field that needs
> initializing, it has to go in two places (whereas if alloc_ref_from_str
> calls alloc_ref, it works automatically).

This is a very good point.  We really do not want a micro-optimization in
a way that hurts maintainability.

Krzysztof's patch has the new function with the duplicated allocation
implementation between the base allocator function and the existing
copy_ref() function which also has yet another duplicated allocation
implementation.  When somebody needs to modify one, it is likely to be
noticed that these three go hand-in-hand, hopefully ;-).

By the way, why isn't alloc_ref() doing xcalloc(), I have to wonder...