Re: [RFC 0/4] ref-filter: remove printing from formatting logic

> Hi Olga
>
> On 13 March 2018 at 11:25, Оля Тележная <olyatelezhnaya@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The main idea of the patch is, if you want to format the output by
>> ref-filter, you should have an ability to work with errors by yourself
>> if you want to.
>> So I decided not to touch signature of show_ref_array_item(), but to
>> move all printing (I mean errors) to it. So that we could invoke
>> format_ref_array_item() and be sure that we cold handle errors by
>> ourselves.
>>
>> The patch is not finished, but I decided to show it to you. There are
>> still many places where we could die in the middle of formatting
>> process. But, if you like the general idea, I will finish and re-send
>> it.
>>
>> Another question is about verify_ref_format(). Do we need to allow its
>> users also to manage errors by themselves? I left the old scenario,
>> printing everything in verify_ref_format() and die. If you have better
>> ideas, please share them.
>
> I think it is a good idea to stop die-ing in "libgit". This seems like a
> good way of achieving that, or isolating the issue. Do you have any
> particular use-case for this, i.e., are you setting up the stage for a
> patch "5" where you add a new user of one of these?

>
> I do wonder whether a helper function to call strbuf_addstr() and return
> -1 would be a good idea though. I mentioned it in patch 2, then with
> patches 3 and 4, it started to seem like a reasonably good idea. It
> would be a shame if this sort of "boilerplate" for handling errors could
> have an impact on code clarity / obviousness.

>
> Another issue is whether passing NULL for an error-strbuf should be a
> way of saying "I don't care; die() so I do not have to". Well, right now
> I guess passing NULL would indeed terminate the program. ;-) Such a
> construct might be another reason for providing error_strbuf_addstr()...
> Of course, it also means we keep die-ing in libgit..
>
> I feel I'm just talking out loud. Maybe you find my input useful.