Re: [PATCH v1 3/4] config: factor out global config file retrievalync-mailbox>

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 27, 2023, 15:54 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq8r7ooyc8.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <ZTjMMC1GiPJUXnQm@tanuki>

Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> This parameter would only exist for the purpose of the error message,
> right? If so, I think that'd be overkill. If we want to have differing
> errors depending on how the function is called the best way to handle
> that would likely be to generate the error message at the callsite
> instead of in the library itself.

We would need to make sure the lower-level helpers need to be able to tell what kind of failure they saw (in other words, why they are failing) to the callers, which may require a bit of designing the error return convention and plumbing through necessary pieces of information, but the longer term payoff would be great.

I do not think this is such a case, but if the lower-level needs to fail differently (e.g., the thing not existing is acceptable when writing as we will create a new one, but is a fail-worthy error when reading), then the caller needs to give that down the callchain, though.