Re: [PATCH v5 1/1] cat-file: quote-format name in error when using -z

From: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>
Date: May 15, 2023, 08:47 UTC
Message-ID: <ec139b78-1d36-f894-e39f-f29877a67b18@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqy1ltqygb.fsf@gitster.g>

On 12/05/2023 17:57, Junio C Hamano wrote:

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> Toon Claes <toon@iotcl.com> writes:
> Stepping back a bit, how big a problem is this in real life?  It
> certainly is possible to create a pathname with funny byte values in
> it, and in some environments,letters like single-quote that are
> considered cumbersome to handle by those who are used to CLI
> programs may be commonplace.  But a path with newline?  Or any
> control character for that matter?  And this is not even the primary
> output from the program but is an error message for consumption by
> humans, no?
> 
> I am wondering if it is simpler to just declare that the paths
> output in error messages have certain bytes, probably all control
> characters other than HT, replaced with a dot, and tell the users
> not to rely on the pathnames being intact if they contain funny
> bytes in them.

We could only c-quote the name when it contains a control character other that HT. That way names containing double quotes and backslashes are unchanged but it will still be possible to parse the path from the error message. If we're going to munge the name we might as well use our standard quoting rather than some ad-hoc scheme.

Best Wishes

Phillip

   That way, with the definition of "work" being "you

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> can read the path out of error messages that talk about it", paths
> with bytes that c-quote mechanism butchers, like double quotes and
> backslashes, that have worked before will not be broken, and paths
> with LF or CRLF in them that have never worked would not work, but
> at least does not break the input stream of whoever is reading the
> error messages line by line.
> 
> I dunno.
> 
>