From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 03:19:04 GMT
Subject: Re: Why do we have both x*() and *_or_die() for "do or die"?
Message-ID: <xmqq4lizvz2v.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <874liz8tsi.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> Just a side-question unrelated to this patch per-se, why do we have both
> x*() and *_or_die() functions in the codebase? I can't find any pattern
> for one or the other.

My understanding is that x*() were meant for system library
functions.  read-index-or-die should never be x-read-index.

Quite honestly, read-index should probably have designed to die from
the beginning, with read-index-gently as a variant to report an
error instead of dying.