Re: [PATCH] sideband.c: replace int with size_t for clarity

"Chandra Pratap via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:

Changing the type of the paramter alone might be a good start, but does not really help anybody, as (1) the callers are not taught to handle wider integral types for the values they pass and (2) the function uses "int len" it computes internally to compare with "n".

There are three callers in demultiplex_sideband(), one of whose paramters is "int len" and is passed to this function in one of these calls. Among the other two, one uses "int linelen" derived from scanning the piece of memory read from sideband via strpbrk(), and the other uses strlen(b) which is the length of the "remainder" of the same buffer after the loop that processes one line at a time using the said strpbrk() is done with the complete lines in the early part.

The buffer involved in all of the above stores bytes taken from a packet received via the pkt-line interface, which is capable of transferring only 64kB at a time.

I _think_ the most productive use of our time is to replace the NEEDSWORK with a comment saying why it is fine to use "int" here to avoid tempting the next developer to come up with this patch again---they will waste their time to do so without thinking it through if we leave the (incomplete) NEEDSWORK comment, I am afraid.