Re: [PATCH v5 16/18] tree-walk.h API: add a get_tree_entry_path() function

> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> -		if (get_tree_entry_mode(r, hash2, del_prefix, shifted, &mode))
>> +		if (get_tree_entry_path(r, hash2, del_prefix, shifted))
>>  			die("cannot find path %s in tree %s",
>>  			    del_prefix, oid_to_hex(hash2));
>
> The observation that many "get_tree_entry()" users do not need the
> mode bits and the code can be simplified by taking advantage of
> that fact is good.
>
> It does not automatically follow that it is a good implementation of
> that simplification to introduce a variant that does not take the
> mode pointer.  The original function could have just been taught to
> accept NULL in the field the caller is not interested in, as in many
> other functions do.
>
> Besides, get_tree_entry_mode() vs get_tree_entry_path() does not
> make any sense as pair of functions with contrasting names.  If it
> were that unlike the former that returns mode, the latter returns
> path instead, it would have made sense, but that is not what is
> going on.  The former returns object name and mode, the latter only
> returns object name without mode.
>
> In any case, at this point in the series, it is highly dubious that
> an extra function is an improvement.  Teaching get_tree_entry() (do
> not even rename it) to take NULL in *mode pointer would make a lot
> more sense.