Subject: Re: [PATCH 03/26] t1400: Pass a legitimate <newvalue> to update command

From: Brad King <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 08:49:28 -0400

On 03/10/2014 05:38 PM, Michael Haggerty wrote:
> It seems to me that "-z" input will nearly always be machine-generated,
> so there is not much reason to accept the empty string as shorthand for
> zeros.  So I think that my version of the rules, being simpler to
> explain, is a slight improvement.

I agree.

> But your version is already out in the wild, so backwards-compatibility
> is also a consideration, even though it is rather a fine point in a
> rather unlikely usage (why use update rather than delete to delete a
> reference?).

I'm not using empty==zero with -z in any deployment.  Since the feature
is quite new, the behavior change is not silent, and it is easy to
construct input that works with both versions, I do not think we need
to worry about compatibility.

> or rewrite the documentation to describe my rules.

I prefer this approach.

Thanks,
-Brad