Re: [PATCH v3 2/4] cat-file: introduce the --filters option

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
> 
> > So I would not mind if we define the semantics of "--filters" as
> > such (as long as it is clearly documented, of course).  AFAICS, the
> > batch interface does not call filter_object() for non-blobs, and by
> > returning successfully without doing anything special for a symbolic
> > link from filter_object() automatically gives us the "by default
> > return as-is, but give processed output only for regular file blobs"
> > semantics to the batch mode.
> >
> > But for a non-batch mode, it feels somewhat funny to be giving the
> > as-is output without saying anything to symbolic links; we can argue
> > that it is being consistent with what we do in the batch mode,
> > though.
> 
> In other words, instead of trying to be consistent by erroring out
> in non-regular blob case, I think the attached change on top would
> make more sense, by consistently passing the object contents as-is
> for all "not filtered" cases, whether it is run from the batch mode
> or from the command line.
> 
>  builtin/cat-file.c | 7 +------
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 6 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/builtin/cat-file.c b/builtin/cat-file.c
> index f8a3a08..99cb525 100644
> --- a/builtin/cat-file.c
> +++ b/builtin/cat-file.c
> @@ -33,12 +33,7 @@ static int filter_object(const char *path, unsigned mode,
>  	if (!*buf)
>  		return error(_("cannot read object %s '%s'"),
>  			sha1_to_hex(sha1), path);
> -	if (type != OBJ_BLOB) {
> -		free(*buf);
> -		return error(_("blob expected for %s '%s'"),
> -			sha1_to_hex(sha1), path);
> -	}
> -	if (S_ISREG(mode)) {
> +	if ((type == OBJ_BLOB) && S_ISREG(mode)) {
>  		struct strbuf strbuf = STRBUF_INIT;
>  		if (convert_to_working_tree(path, *buf, *size, &strbuf)) {
>  			free(*buf);