Subject: Re: [PATCH 13/26] update-ref --stdin: Simplify error messages for missing oldvalues

From: Brad King <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 13:08:37 -0400

On 03/10/2014 08:46 AM, Michael Haggerty wrote:
> Instead of, for example,
> 
>     fatal: update refs/heads/master missing [<oldvalue>] NUL
> 
> emit
> 
>     fatal: update refs/heads/master missing <oldvalue>
[snip]
> -		die("update %s missing [<oldvalue>] NUL", update->ref_name);
> +		die("update %s missing <oldvalue>", update->ref_name);

The reason for the original wording is that the <oldvalue> is indeed
optional.  This can only occur at end-of-input, and it is actually the
*NUL* that is missing because an empty old value can be specified to
mean that it it intentionally missing.

-Brad