From: Hardik Kumar Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:01:20 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] builtin: replace the_repository parameter in is_bare_repository() Message-ID: In-Reply-To: On Fri Aug 28, 2026 at 1:58 AM IST, Junio C Hamano wrote: > "Hardik Kumar" writes: > >>> In general, builtin/foo.c::cmd_foo() are concrete programs that work >>> on specific repository (i.e., the_repository), and there is not much >>> reason to rewrite the use of the_repository to use "repo" given by >>> the caller which is git potty. You'd also need to deal with the >>> case where "repo" is NULL (hint: "cd / && git foo -h"). >> >> Right, but would safety check be required for single instance or better >> to find and work on only the specific ones which could lead to an >> exception. > > I do not quite get what you mean. In a single function you use > the_repository and repo interchangeably, relying on repo, when it is > not NULL), being the same as the_repository for correctness. If > they ever refer to different things, then your updated code is less > consistent than the original, which would not be an improvement. > > I actually think a good medium size project is to fix the last > parameter given to cmd_foo() built-in command implementations that > is a pointer to "struct repository". It was a misguided design. > > This pointer is either NULL or the_repository; it never takes any > other value. It is misleading and invites confusion that these > functions can take arbitrary repository instance. It also invites > people to replace all references in cmd_foo() to "the_repository" > with "repo", which may lead to an error. Depending on where > parse_options() call appears in the cmd_foo(), "cd / && git foo -h" > will cause segfaults with such a change. > > If we change the function signature of cmd_foo() to receive a "bool" > that says "true" if the command was run inside a repository and > "false" otherwise, cmd_foo() can still tell if the command was run > outside a repository, and programmers will not be misled to use > anything other than "the_repository" as the repository to work on. > > The utility functions builtin/foo.c borrows from outside builtin/ > directory are being "libified" to reduce the hardcoded dependence on > the_repository, and cmd_foo() can call these functions with > the_repository as a parameter. But we have no reason to waste our > time updating (and also reviewing patches that make such updates) > the built-in implementations themselves to take a pointer to an > arbitrary repository. Understood. Thanks for the clarification.