Re: [PATCH v6 3/3] bisect--helper: `write_terms` shell function in C

From: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Date: May 16, 2016, 15:42 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPig+cQ=Gche_uO840wF6qE4WD-ZNZj1HFzNNgaBi_UjG1sjEg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1605161508230.3303@virtualbox>

On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 9:16 AM, Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:

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> On Mon, 16 May 2016, Eric Sunshine wrote:
>> On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 1:32 AM, Pranit Bauva <pranit.bauva@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > +       fp = fopen(".git/BISECT_TERMS", "w");
>>
>> Hardcoding ".git/" is wrong for a variety of reasons: It won't be correct
>> with linked worktrees, or when GIT_DIR is pointing elsewhere, or when ".git"
>> is a symbolic link, etc. Check out the get_git_dir(), get_git_common_dir(),
>> etc. functions in cache.h instead.
>
> Maybe in this case, `git_path("BISECT_TERMS")` would be a good idea. Or even
> better: follow the example of bisect.c and use
> `GIT_PATH_FUNC(bisect_terms_path, "BISECT_TERMS")`.

Thanks for pointing this out. My review time is severely limited these days so I didn't go the distance of re-studying and re-digesting which function was the correct one to use.

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>> > +               strbuf_release(&content);
>> > +               die_errno(_("could not open the file to read terms"));
>>
>> Is dying here correct? I thought we established previously that you
>> should be reporting failure via normal -1 return value rather than
>> dying. Indeed, you're doing so below when strbuf_write() fails.
>
> The rule of thumb seems to be that die()ing is okay in builtin/*.c, but not
> in *.c. So technically, it would be okay here, too. However, I think that
> this code should be written with libification in mind, so I would also
> prefer it to error() and return, to give the caller a chance to do other
> things after an error occurred.

Agreed. Specific to the "established previously" I wrote above, I was referring to [1] from just a few days ago which explained why 'return -1' was preferable to die() in a similar case that had an odd mix of 'return -1' and die() in the same function.

[1]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/289476/focus=293556