Re: [PATCH v3 10/12] usage: allow dying without writing an error message

From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Jun 3, 2025, 10:46 UTC
Message-ID: <aD7SoaRg4UV6ktJL@pks.im>
In-Reply-To: <CAOLa=ZQTYTNiUhFW+kOqMro0rpWVTkyKop7az_6h7zgM8njRhw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 03, 2025 at 11:04:56AM +0200, Karthik Nayak wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> On Tue, Jun 3, 2025 at 10:34 AM Kristoffer Haugsbakk
> <kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, Jun 3, 2025, at 10:31, Karthik Nayak wrote:
> > > Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
> > >
> > >> Sometimes code wants to die in a situation where it already has written
> > >> an error message. To use the same error code as `die()` we have to open
> > >> code the code with a call to `exit(128)` in such cases, which is easy to
> > >
> > > Nit: This reads a little weird.
> >
> > Maybe s/to open code the code/to open-code the code/
> 
> Ah, that makes so much difference.

That reads better, but I guess we can improve it even further. How about this instead:

    To retain the same error code as `die()` we have to use `exit(128)`,
    which is easy to get wrong and leaves magical numbers all over our
    codebase.

Patrick